


My Lost City

by elise_509



Category: Captain America (Movies), Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-17
Updated: 2013-10-17
Packaged: 2017-12-29 17:29:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 42,311
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elise_509/pseuds/elise_509
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Both Steve and Tony return to Manhattan after their separate missions.  While Steve searches for shadows of the New York he knew, Tony tries to overcome his anxiety and re-claim the place that was once his home.   As they both attempt to remember how to love their city, they might also learn how to love each other.</p><p> Spoilers for <i>Iron Man Three</i>, Speculative Spoilers for <i>Captain America: The Winter Soldier</i> (AU but utilizing some characters/situations from film)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Author's Note:**

> Many thanks to:
> 
> digitalwave for her excellent artwork and for being an absolute joy to work with! I was very lucky to be gifted with her art for this story. 
> 
> My talented and amazing beta reader, romelwen. Love you forever and always, m'dear!
> 
> The amazing marvel_bang crew, who do such wonderful jobs bringing this off every year. We all appreciate your hard work!  
> 
>   
>   
> [Art Master Post](http://digitalwave.livejournal.com/569767.html) by digitalwave
> 
>    
>  **[Soundtrack](http://elise-509.livejournal.com/382062.html)**
> 
>    
> 

Manhattan has changed.

City blocks have been destroyed by the battle with the Chitauri, the skyline once again irrevocably altered by outside forces hell bent on destruction. Even as the skeletons of new buildings grow hopefully toward the sky and the old buildings saved are patched over, re-bricked, reinforced and restructured, the scars remain, and will always remain. 

New York doesn’t look the same. From the sky or from the streets, the shape of the city has shifted.

But he doesn’t mean it’s changed in the obvious ways. For Tony, it’s smaller than that…and larger than that. It’s something intangible, a sense that the city he once knew is somehow just…gone. 

He once found New York, with its deep, stretching canyons and glorious noise, to be the fast-moving, fast-thinking kind of place that he could plug right into. He could become one with the hustle and bustle and the near-electric flow of traffic and people. As a child, he’d escape the elegant, cordoned off existence of his parents’ Fifth Avenue life and run the streets, ride the subways, eager to explore the nooks and crannies of the too-tiny yet endless island.

His father always saw New York as something to be improved, his mother viewed it as something to be tamed, but Tony reveled in its dirt, its stubborn wild nature, its utter refusal of predictability. He always saw something more than they did and felt special because of it. Like the truth about this place was a secret only he understood. 

In Manhattan, Tony once saw himself, writ large with neon signs and massive billboards, street grids marking off organized chaos that just seemed so perfect and brilliant in its irrational sanity. Manhattan was to him a perfect paradox – logical and illogical all at once. 

The older he grew, the allure of the city dimmed. Tony avoided it for many reasons – his father being chief among them while he was alive, and strangely even more so after his death – but even as Tony’s life became a whirlwind of globe-trotting business trips and decadent excursions, something inevitably pulled him back. He yearned for New York even when it hurt to be there. He could never refuse its call. 

He needed to come home to re-charge. To find his balance. He’d created Stark Tower as a kind of beacon of hope for the future, but really it was his own North Star. He needed this place, even if he didn’t want to admit it. 

Now he finds himself off-kilter surrounded by oppressive skyscrapers, claustrophobic in the unceasing, unyielding crowds. Sometimes he feels like the clouds above are going to implode, that the buildings will shatter and every person will cling to him, suffocate him or tear him to pieces in their own desperate attempts to survive. 

Manhattan is no longer his friend, eagerly conspiring with him toward greatness. It is his enemy: a living, breathing entity over which he has no control. Everything he once loved about this mercurial island now terrifies him. 

He keeps waking up screaming, sure that the dark, gaping maw of the Chitauri’s portal above his once-beloved building has swallowed the city whole. 

It’s funny that he’d been willing to die to protect this place, and now he can’t stand to be here. 

With his life on both coasts effectively wiped out, his suits of armor destroyed and his chest free and clear of both the arc reactor and shrapnel, Tony should feel like his slate is wiped clean. 

For the first time in a long, long time, he has his health, he has an easy conscience, and he has love. He and Pepper could go anywhere, do anything, _be_ anything. 

And yet…

Sunrise filters yellow-red through the small, thick windows. The light slants across Bucky’s face but his eyes stay steady and wide, unblinking. Steve wonders what his friend is seeing, because it’s surely not the blanket of dappled clouds that stretches out for miles beneath the Quinjet.

Natasha had ceded their vigil to him alone only an hour ago, the days of nearly non-stop running and fighting finally catching up to her. She’d reluctantly given in and curled up in one of the jump seats, using his coat as a shield against the pervasive chill of the hold and wadding up his hoodie for a makeshift pillow. It’s a sign of how far the two of them have come that she’s able to sleep unarmed in his company, trusting him not to betray her when she’s vulnerable but also to protect her if the need arises.

Even so, Steve suspects the slightest noise will still wake her in alarm, so he moves carefully when he folds himself into the seat beside Bucky. 

He feels too large, too threatening, and wonders if Bucky would remember him better – remember him _at all_ rather - if he looked like his old self. The one Bucky grew up with. 

The one Bucky loved. 

Bucky looks through him now as if he’s not even here. It’s odd to feel both impossibly huge and invisible at the same time.

Steve bites back his questions and concerns because he knows his words won’t register. Bucky would have no answers even if they did. He has to settle for being close enough to touch, reassured by the steady rhythm of his best friend’s breathing. 

When he sees the familiar skyline shimmering like a mirage in the distance, emerging blue-grey and beautiful out of the rapidly clearing morning fog, Steve reaches over and puts his hand over Bucky’s. 

He dares to hope that Bucky will see the city and remember it all. 

The fateful meeting at St. John’s Orphan Asylum; the nights scrapping in Hell’s Kitchen; the days scrounging for work that never quite paid all the bills. He wishes Bucky would remember all the double dates despite the unbearable awkwardness, because Bucky loved to dance, and laugh, and sing, and Steve loved to watch him enjoy life enough for the both of them. 

He wants Bucky to recall looking over his shoulder in art class at Cooper Union, his visit made purposely to distract in that frivolous, beautiful way of his that disappeared forever a mere moment later when it was announced that the country was now at war. 

He even selfishly wishes Bucky would remember the war itself, fighting side by side as equals, partners. The times that Steve finally saved Bucky’s life, returning half a lifetime’s worth of favors. 

They were so close people mistook them for brothers; yet in truth they were even closer – more like lovers who never dared admit that no one else would ever do. He wants Bucky to remember _that_. 

He can see pieces of their past dwelling in the shadows between the shiny, modern, new buildings if he looks hard enough. When he tries to hold on, it all slips through his fingers, but he knows it’s all there, somewhere. Hiding. Waiting. 

Steve leans in, pointing out the window. 

“Look, Buck. Home. You’re home.” 

Bucky’s glance ticks toward the window where New York City stands proudly to welcome them. His blue eyes spark with something akin to recognition but then the light dims, flickers out entirely. 

Bucky slowly pulls his fingers from Steve’s grasp, the metal of the handcuff and chain that links his only wrist to the floor clinking lightly. SHIELD agents had removed his cybernetic arm and without it he seems like the walking wounded, despite the injury being seventy years old. Bucky shrinks into himself, hiding his good hand in the folds of his worn jacket. 

“That’s not home.” 

Bucky shifts, angling his body purposely away from Steve’s. His eyelids slowly close against the morning sun. He doesn’t say anything more. 

Steve sighs, dragging his gaze from the sharp lines of Bucky’s face to once again take in the sight of Manhattan. 

“You’re right, Buck…it’s not.” He admits, stopping himself as he goes to pat his friend on the knee, reminding himself not to touch. “It’s not.”


	2. Winter

“Heeeeyy, Brucie…” Tony waves a hand in front of Bruce’s face but nothing disturbs his vacant gaze. He can’t manage to hold Bruce’s attention, the other man seemingly willing to drift off into his own thoughts or a brief nap at a moment’s notice. Tony snaps his fingers a few times, as noisily as he can. “Hello, anyone home in there?”

“Uh, um, what?” Bruce blinks, head dropping forward and then jerking back up, stumbling clumsily into alertness. “Sorry, I-“

“For the record, falling asleep while I’m revealing my inner most thoughts and deepest secrets earns you nothing but demerits, demerits, demerits.” Tony points an accusatory finger. “I have it on good authority – Pepper’s authority – that sleeping with your eyes open does not equal listening, even if it gives the _appearance_ of listening. You’re not holding up your end of the bargain, buddy.” 

“We have a bargain?” Bruce yawns, rubbing his face. 

“All relationships are a bargain.” Tony sits upright, hands gesturing to animate his point. “Deals, compromises, negotiations, or whatever term you want to use. Though you should consider sticking with ‘bargain’ because with behavior like this, I think the overall connotation of ‘cut rate prices’ might help you to get people to buy what you’re selling, if you ask me.”

“I didn’t ask, but…wait, I’m sorry…what are we even talking about?” Bruce runs a hand through his newly trimmed hair before looking down at his clothes, which always look slightly rumpled no matter what time of day Tony encounters him. Bruce smooths his palms down the front of his pale blue dress shirt, feeling the breast pocket of his suit coat for his glasses, and then he looks back up at Tony, confused. 

“ _I_ was telling you how my life has been irrevocably altered over the past month in ways both soul-crushing and mind-bending. And you, well, you were responding to my heartfelt tale by re-enacting a commercial for Ambien.” Bruce opens his mouth to protest but Tony steamrolls over him, affecting a surprised but contemplative air as he continues. “You know, I’ve never been accused of being _boring_ before. I’ve had just about every adjective in the world thrown at me. But never that one. Hurts a little. Stings. Gotta be honest.”

“I didn’t say you were boring.”

“Oh, you actually did. It sounded like –” Tony erupts into a large snore. An apologetic but reluctant smile lifts the corners of Bruce’s mouth, and what Tony wouldn’t give to see this guy give someone an honest-to-god grin just once in his life. 

“I apologize for not giving you my complete attention, Tony, but see, I haven’t been sleeping all that well.”

“Yeah, there’s a bit of that going around lately, isn’t there.” Tony sits up, ignoring Bruce’s questioning look, and pats his own pockets in a search for his phone. Checking his messages, he discovers Pepper’s looking for him; figures, since over three hours have passed since he said he’d be making a “quick stop” at Banner’s lab. “Don’t you like your new digs? I know it can get a little noisy during the day with all the reconstruction, but it can’t be any noisier than that squatter’s slum you had in Kolkata. And I use the term ‘slum’ generously there.”

“My room is fine, Stark, it just takes me a while to get used to new places.”

“Uh, isn’t that kind of what you do?” Tony narrows his eyes at Bruce, lowering his phone for a moment. “You haven’t stayed in one place for more than –”

“That’s precisely what I mean. I don’t usually get comfortable. Settling in doesn’t exactly agree with me.”

“You’re restless, I get it.”

“That’s not quite-“

“I know, gross over-simplification of a far more complex matter, you’re Shrek, you’re a big green monster of an onion, you’ve got layers.” Tony waves Bruce off, wondering how long it will take Bruce to realize that when he says he gets it, he really does _get it_. He supposes the man’s so used to being misunderstood that it’s going to be a long time before he stops with the constant pushback, the insistence on acting the outcast even in a room full of outcasts. 

Tony sighs, stashing his phone and looking at Bruce.

“Well if change is what you want, I can offer you a different setting, perhaps maybe even some new housemates. How do you feel about the upper east side?”

“The same way I feel about most of this city, I suppose: I probably shouldn’t be there.” Tony makes a face at him in response to that ludicrous thought, and Bruce demurs, knowing a losing battle when he sees one. “What’s on the upper east side?”

“The old family abode, la Casa de Stark, le Maison du Mssrs Moneybags of generations past…Fury says the rest of our wayward compatriots are finally back stateside after their super top secret hush-hush government-sanctioned gallivanting around the globe. Since this tower is pretty much still an empty husk above floor fifty, I’ve offered the mansion up as a temporary crash pad. You’re welcome to be anti-social and stay here, but just know that if that’s what you choose, I will text you incessantly with minute-by-minute updates of all the incredibly tense and/or thoroughly awkward ‘fun’ that living with both Widow and Cap will surely provide.”

“With a hard sell like that, Stark, how can I refuse…” Bruce leans back into the couch, resting his elbow on the back and leaning his head against his hand. “I am a little confused though, as I thought…I thought you were done with all… _this._ ”

“I’m more than just the suit.” The words touch on the uncomfortable memory of Steve Rogers sneering down at him, contempt poisonous in his voice. Tony shrugs it off, setting his mind to thinking of the myriad ways he is still more than useful. “I can be involved without actually, y’know, _being_ Iron Man.”

“And Pepper’s okay with that?”

“Being a consultant is hardly dangerous, and leaves plenty of time for me to save the world in other ways, like my awesome clean energy projects – cars are next, wait till you see the prototypes my guys are workin’ on.” Tony almost goes off on a tangent, sharing his plans with Bruce an exciting diversion, but manages to rein himself in and keep on task. “Besides, I like the idea of bankrolling you guys, making you all neat toys and awesomely amazing uniforms. I’m Charlie and you’re my Angels.”

“Ugh, I can never un-hear that.”

Tony chuckles.

“Did you just picture Rogers with feathered hair and short shorts?”

“Or un-see that.” Bruce groans, wincing.

“And my work here is done.” Tony grins, pushing up from his seat. “Meeting at Chez Avengers tomorrow at three. Pepper will remind you it’s at three, JARVIS will remind you it’s at three, but I won’t, because I’ll probably have forgotten it by then myself. Wait, what time was it again?”

“Seven, I think,” Bruce jokes wryly. 

“Be there with bells on, Banner.” Tony winks and clicks his tongue, throwing a two-gun salute as he ambles toward the exit. “Try to get some sleep.”

“You too, Stark.” He hears Bruce half-heartedly call as the glass door slides closed and locks behind him as he leaves. He glances back, catching the way Bruce’s shoulders slump as soon as he thinks he’s alone.

It only reminds Tony of the cold hard truth – he and Bruce aren’t soldiers. They weren’t ready for any of what happened to them. 

But he knows when he sees the Captain tomorrow, broad shoulders squared, poised and ready to face another day, whatever Tony’s reasons are for falling apart are just going to seem like excuses.

Steve watches Bucky and Natasha through the glass. They’re sitting close to one another, talking so lowly no one can hear, just as they have every day for the past week. The sight of it sears painfully, hot and sharp like someone taking a branding iron to his heart, right over the tender place where Bucky’s name had once been delicately scrawled.

Bucky – not _Yasha_ , not the _Winter Soldier_ , not even _James_ , because Steve can’t call him anything but _his_ Bucky – looks as tired and pale as he had when they’d finally taken him down and brought him into custody. 

Steve’s own reflection in the glass looks no better. He hasn’t slept, he has barely eaten; he can’t really bring himself to care. 

“Captain.” Fury greets him firmly but not without respect, and knocks twice on the metal door, signaling for Natasha to come on out. She reluctantly pulls away from her quiet conversation. 

As he and Fury move into the hallway, Agent 13 passes by with Agents Hill and May, evidently on their way back from a session at the gym. She murmurs hello and offers him a pleasant smile, but Steve is too preoccupied to engage her in anything more than a brief greeting. Fury waits until she has rounded the corner before turning his attention back to Steve.

“Glad to see you’re making new friends.” Fury says and even though he and Sharon Carter have only made it through two faltering, somewhat painful conversations about his relationship with her Great Aunt Peggy, Steve doesn’t bother to contradict him. 

Natasha slinks into the hall then, closing the door behind her. 

She glances at him and Steve tries to school his face into the blankest expression he can muster. It’s not easy to do. He can’t lie – as a result of their joint search for Bucky, he had been growing closer to her than anyone in this new world of his. While it was just a part of their cover, they had even kissed, and it had created a strange kind of intimacy between them. Like him being able to play the game and keep up with her on the job made her comfortable letting him in. 

A week ago he might have dared to call her his only real friend. 

But things have shifted now and he can’t look at her the same way. 

Though Natasha is rarely unable to cloak her true feelings, Steve still thinks he sees a flash of hurt in her green eyes as he remains determinedly indifferent to her company. He takes this slight display of emotion not as an honest symptom of her care for him, but simply another sign of how this thing with Bucky has worn her down as well.

“Captain,” she curtly nods at him, then Nick. “Director Fury.”

“I hate to interrupt your little tea party but it seems Stark’s back in town.”

“Stark?” Steve doesn’t bother to mask his surprise or his distaste. They’d been embedded deep in battles of their own when Tony’s fireworks with the Mandarin went off, but after the briefing he’d received upon his return to SHIELD headquarters, he’s surprised to hear Stark’s name coming up again so soon. From what he’d gathered, the man blundered in headstrong and foolish against a mad man and almost got himself and his girlfriend – not to mention the President of the United States – killed in the process. 

After that misadventure, Tony destroyed all variations of his Iron Man armor, removed the power source from inside his chest, and officially retired. Fury almost seemed peeved about that, as if he’d finally gotten used to trusting Stark at the very moment Stark decided to give the whole thing up. 

Steve wants to care – and part of him does, the part that had kind of hoped that he and Tony had finally found some common ground, some mutual respect, and could work together well in the future – but right now he’s too exhausted to deal with a man who had taken what had happened while fighting as an Avenger and pulled entirely the wrong lessons from it. After Tony first decided that he could handle every situation on his own, he then turned around and decided he’d rather not handle any situation at all. Both decisions seemed like the wrong call. 

Maybe if Steve were in a less bitter mood, he could admit that he’s selfishly a little pissed at having one of the very few people he knows decamp for greener pastures, but right now he doesn’t want to think it’s about Stark abandoning _him_ , like it’s personal. 

There’s enough on his plate right now without piling on his own issues. It’d be better to forget Stark entirely and move on, yet that now seems an impossibility.

“What does he want?” Natasha looks like she enjoys Fury’s news about as much as Steve does. She hasn’t been impressed with Stark’s antics of late either.

“Currently he’s in a meeting with some folks he’s got working on this damn Stark Resilient project of his, but he’s requested that you two, along with Barton, meet him at the old Stark Mansion in half an hour. Banner’s already there.”

“Forgive me, Director, but how is Tony Stark in the position to request anything? I was under the impression he no longer wished to be a part of this organization.” Steve tries to keep his tone respectful but there’s a demanding, annoyed edge already creeping into his words that he just can’t help. Thankfully Fury doesn’t call him on it. 

“Well, apparently Stark’s going to be one of those parents who yell at refs from the sidelines.”

“I’m sorry?” 

“He means that Tony’s incapable of keeping his nose out of SHIELD’s business, even if he’s no longer Iron Man.” Natasha clarifies. “I don’t see how he rates priority over my - _our_ \- work here with Barnes.” 

“I’ll go.” Steve volunteers tersely before Natasha can continue, keeping his gaze locked on Fury’s stern face. “Agent Romanoff can stay.”

“It wasn’t really an either/or scenario, Cap. You’re both going, and it’s not up for debate. I’m not having two of my best men tied down playing nursemaid. I have a qualified team of psychiatrists and doctors waiting to do that and both of you are just _in the way._ Now _go._ ”

Neither of them moves immediately, but Fury keeps staring at them, his arm outstretched toward the exit. Natasha glances toward Bucky and Fury’s good eye twitches. 

Steve moves first and just trusts Natasha will fall in line and follow. 

The elevator ride down to the main floor is tense. Steve stands a good two paces in front of Natasha, focusing his concentration on the lighted numbers counting their way down to the lobby. 

Around floor twenty-five, Natasha breaks the silence.

“I hardly expected this from you, Cap.” She speaks with a studied nonchalance, and without looking Steve knows she has her eyebrow arched in a calculated display of amused contempt. He doesn’t have to ask her what she means. 

“Have I argued any other way?” He asks, glancing back, and Natasha offers a slight shrug in response. “Right now, you’re what’s best for the situation.” 

“And that rates me the cold shoulder.” It’s not a question, because a question would mean concern, disbelief, perhaps reveal emotional injury and personal investment, and Natasha’s above all that. It’s just a cool observation, delivered like a sit rep or a comment on the weather.

“I’m keeping my focus on the job.” _And you should too_ goes unsaid and Steve knows that the implied reprimand should keep her from bringing it up again, if only because she’ll be so irked at his presumption that she then won’t want to talk to him either. If he’s managing to bear the fact that Bucky wants to see only her, the least Natasha could do is let him deal with it how he deals with it. He’s not interfering and he’s not criticizing, and that should damn well be enough.

Steve crosses his arms over his chest and stares at the elevator doors, his reflection a dull, blurry shadow on the polished steel. He holds back his sigh of relief as the car slows to a gentle stop, announcing its arrival at the main floor with a soft _ding_. He exits into the lobby first despite it being ungentlemanly, but he can’t stop himself from holding the door open for Natasha as they head outside. 

She rolls her eyes at him for doing so, as always. 

The winter air hits him crisp and bitter cold as he steps out onto the sidewalk, but the day is bright and sunny and what’s left of the snow is churning to slush in the gutter. Except for in some of the parks, snow never stays long in the city. 

There is a sleek black Town Car waiting for them at the curb, door held open by a young agent who seems to be struggling to keep the required frown on his face. There’s been an influx of new, eager recruits since the Battle of New York and not all of them seem to have mastered “SHIELD Stoic” as of yet. Coulson being back in action should probably help with that lapse in training.

Natasha slips by him into the backseat, but the thought of spending a fraught car ride uptown makes Steve hesitate in following. 

“I think I’ll walk.” He announces, and Natasha angles herself back outside the car to eye him critically. 

“It’s thirty blocks.”

“I know where it is.” At least he assumes he does, unless the Starks moved the familial home to another place on Fifth since the forties. He used to pass by it on his way to the Met and he wondered at the size of it, both amazed and appalled at the thought of one single man occupying the city block sized house while he shared a single room at the orphanage with fifteen other boys. When he and Bucky finally got their own apartment, moving out of the boarding house to a place on Plymouth Street so small they had to share a bed and take baths in the kitchen, they’d still thought they were living like kings. 

Steve looks north up Broadway, shielding his eyes from the afternoon sun with a lifted hand. This area is one of the few places in the city now where the sidewalks and buildings remain free and clear of the nearly omnipresent scaffolding that canopies other city streets. The lack of those posting-slathered obstructions makes the sidewalk seem broader, longer, more like the streets of New York he remembers.

He imagines it will be far easier to make this walk now than it would have been back then, when he was small and weak. Back then, when the winter cold would make his asthma kick up just as surely as the spring pollen and the summer heat. 

Back then, when he had no personal knowledge of any member of the Stark family and being invited to their home would have been a ludicrous notion. 

He never would’ve guessed he’d come to personally know not one but two generations of Starks, much less receive direct orders to bunk under their roof.

“Fine. Walk. Don’t be late.” 

He turns back to answer Natasha, his thoughts already two miles away, and finds nothing but his own reflection in the heavily tinted window of the now closed car door. The Lincoln pulls into traffic smoothly but quickly, leaving Steve alone on the sidewalk. 

Steve pauses to consider his route, opting to avoid the tourist hustle and bustle of Times Square and head east for two blocks before turning to trek up Fifth Avenue. 

He’s been told “real” New Yorkers now avoid Times Square like the plague, so he supposes he might still fit in here after all.

Tony would like to pretend that he didn’t arrive late on purpose, but that would be a lie. As it is, he's at the house well in advance of everyone else but blusters down the curving main staircase and into the foyer fifteen minutes past three just to give the impression that he is both that busy and that blithe.

He does a furtive headcount as he descends, footsteps light and fast, and comes up two short. He knows where Bruce is but Tony is saved from asking after the Captain’s whereabouts by the opening of the front door. 

He immediately notices two things. Cap looks like shit, and he’s not alone. He comments on the first of these observations, taken aback by how drawn and pale Steve appears. A quick scan with Extremis tells him Steve’s heart rate is up, though that can’t account for how Steve’s usually bright blue eyes seem dull and utterly lifeless. 

“God, Cap, who ran you over with a Mack truck?” He bypasses Clint and Natasha, making quick time across the black and white tiled floor, and stops in front of the super soldier. Curiosity always wins out over courtesy. “I didn’t think it was possible for you to look this terrible.”

“Well, Stark, you aren’t looking so great yourself,” Steve replies, and Tony falters only a split second before laughing the comment off. Despite knowing better, he’s still caught off guard by Rogers giving as good as he gets. Forty plus years of imagining the man sans a smart mouth is a hard habit to break. 

“I have no idea what you’re talking about. I’m physically incapable of looking anything less than one hundred percent amazing. Today? Actually one hundred and two percent.” Tony gestures up and down his body, knowing that however exhausted he feels he _has_ to look loads better than Steve looks right now. If even just because he’s dressed better. Even Steve’s boring khakis and blue plaid shirt are rumpled rather than ironed and creased to perfection. “So, what’s up, pussycat, what’s got your star spangled self all less than super shiny?”

Steve opens his mouth to speak, but then stops, seemingly at a loss for words.

“You must be Tony Stark.” The man beside Steve jumps in, half-stepping between them and offering Tony his hand. “I’m Sam Wilson.”

Tony takes a moment to consider before shaking. Sam’s a bit shorter than Steve but just as built, and he seems bright, flashy and slightly insincere. He’s also wearing a NY Jets jersey, which, just…no. 

“Ah, yes, the name sounds vaguely familiar, I think Fury might have mentioned you in one of his ragey ramblings but I tend to drown those out if and when at all possible. I’m guessing Fury told you to drop by?”

“Naw, I actually ran into Steve just now in Grand Army Plaza and decided to tag along.”

“Oh did you?” Tony smells a lie, but if Fury wants to hamstring him into offering the newbie a place here too, he’ll need to ask politely and with the proper paperwork. Making Fury jump through bureaucratic hoops and dodge red tape is delicious payback, and since Pepper deals with all the paperwork it’s a win-win as far as he’s concerned. 

Tony starts pulling up all the background information he can on Sam, using Extremis to run through it and highlight any pertinent or compelling facts. Another New York City boy, born and raised in Harlem. Twenty-nine. Once a street thug, now he’s all reformed, a good little social worker doing community outreach in New York’s toughest areas. He also keeps pigeons on the roof of his building as some kind of neighborhood project for the kids, like he’s some kinda Terry Malloy. 

There will be no birds kept at Stark Mansion. 

Finding out how Sam wound up in this business will take a little hacking into SHIELD that he doesn’t have the patience or time for in present company, but from his short bio, this kid sounds like someone right up Cap’s alley. The kind of hero Steve could readily relate to and accept. 

Tony doesn’t like him. 

Wilson also uses some kind of flying device, a suit that lets him cover the Avengers from the sky.

Tony _really_ doesn’t like him.

“How was the walk?” Clint interrupts, reminding Tony that there are other people in the room. He looks at Clint and Natasha, finds Natasha tight-lipped and purposefully quiet with her eyes trained intently on Steve. If Tony’s not mistaken, she seems slightly peeved, although with her it’s really hard to tell. 

“Crowded. Grand Army looks different, but the Plaza Hotel looks pretty much the same, even if it’s far more…” Steve pauses, “Uh, _surrounded_ than it used to be.”

“Man says rooms there used to go for five dollars back in his day, you believe that? Five dollars. I told him how much they are now and he nearly fainted.” Sam claps a large hand on Steve’s shoulder and leaves it there, his smile loose and easy. 

“Five dollars was a lot back then too.” Steve returns the smile, tired but real. 

“Amazing.” Tony is anything but interested. “Well, Wilson, since you’re here, may as well stay for the dime tour.” 

“It’s a beautiful place,” Sam replies as Tony leads them all out of the foyer and toward the dining room. “I always thought this joint was a museum or something.”

“Or something,” Tony says, mostly to himself, but then forces himself to brighten. He’s not about to wallow in front of this crowd. “It’s been kept up but hasn’t been lived in for years. I figured we could kick out the old cobwebs, brush off the furniture and make use of this pile of bricks while the Tower is under re-construction.”

He can see Clint and Natasha casing the place as they move through the hallway – he’d expect nothing less, really – but it surprises him to see Cap moving so warily. 

There’s a medieval suit of armor on display in the corridor, and Rogers pauses before it. Tony ushers the rest ahead and then hangs back, watching as the other man reaches out and touches the arm, fingers gentle against the cool metal. 

He draws back quickly, guiltily, when he feels Tony’s gaze resting upon him, and casts an awkward glance his direction. 

“Sorry, I was just…” He flushes faintly, shoving his hands in his pockets before looking up at the vaulted ceiling, back down the long hallway, clearly taking it all in. He shuffles his feet nervously on the Oriental rug. “This place doesn’t really seem like Howard.”

“Well…” Tony clears his throat, plotting a swift subject change.

“Even less like you,” Cap adds softly, leaning in toward the tapestry hanging on the wall. He speaks in an offhand way like it was just a passing, unimportant thought, but the delivery doesn’t keep it from landing heavy and meaningful between them. 

Steve’s hand moves toward the tapestry, like he wants to touch that too, but he draws back before making contact. 

“It’s temporary,” Tony states, unable to come up with a witty response. Of course the place doesn’t seem like him, he hasn’t set foot here in over twenty-five years. “That ‘big ugly building’ is more my speed, we’ll be back up there scraping the sky in no time.”

Tony can’t tell if Steve truly blushes that deeply red or if it just appears that way because the man’s so uncommonly pale today. Either way, it’s a nice change of pace to see him color with something besides anger and annoyance.

“I’m sorry. When I said that, I suppose I just wasn’t used to today’s architecture. The Empire State was still the height of modernity when I…” Steve makes a vague gesture with his hand, searching for the right word. “Left.”

Tony smirks, noticing that even in his apology, Steve didn’t actually profess a change of opinion about the Tower. 

“I’m sure you’re going to be appalled at a great many buildings besides my tower, Cap, give it time. Mine will look positively restrained by comparison.” Tony winks. With most of Park Avenue and parts of Midtown destroyed in the Chitauri’s attack and the Lower East and West Side being gentrified like mad, there’ll be less of old New York around than ever. 

He slips into the dining room, leaving Rogers to follow him. 

“This one’s pretty self-explanatory.” He runs a hand over the intricately carved backs of each of the ten chairs lining this side of the long, mahogany table as he crosses the length of the room toward the library. “And here in the library-cum-lounge, we should also find someone you folks already know.”

Bruce looks up from his reading as Tony enters, peering up at the group over the top of his glasses. He closes his book, sticking a finger inside to keep his page, and rises from the wingback armchair. He smiles tentatively, eyes flicking back and forth between everyone approaching.

“He does look vaguely familiar,” Natasha comments dryly before extending her hand out to Bruce. Bruce relaxes a little at Natasha’s reception, their strained history having left him apprehensive. “It’s good to see you again, Banner. Been in New York long?”

“Amazingly, yes.”

“Stark’s been holding you hostage?” Clint chuckles, next in line for a handshake. 

“Something like that.”

“Hey now.” Tony glares, shaking his head and wagging his finger. “That’s the thanks I get for putting you up?”

“Putting me up or putting up with me?” Bruce asks, though he’s smiling so Tony’s not too worried that he means it. At least not completely.

“C’mon, Brucie Bear, you know I love you.” 

“Hope you don’t mind getting a few new housemates.” Steve approaches with Sam in tow, the other man looping an arm loosely over Steve’s shoulders and introducing himself to Bruce with a far more genuine smile than that which he’d offered Tony. 

It makes Tony wonder what gossip is going around SHIELD about his and Steve’s tense, acrimonious start, because somehow, despite any misgivings he has about Cap, he doubts that Steve’s the one gabbing at the water cooler, sharing all the dirty details. 

“The more the merrier, Captain,” Bruce replies kindly. “It’s nice to meet you, Sam.”

As Bruce makes nice with the new kid, Natasha grips Tony’s elbow a little too firmly and pulls him aside. 

“Sam _will_ be staying here, right?” She’s not really asking. Tony arches an eyebrow at her. Surprisingly, she has the decency to look the smallest bit apologetic. “Things are…things are a bit…” He doesn’t miss the way her gaze flicks guiltily toward Cap. “ _Delicate_ at the moment and I think it would be best for Steve to have someone around who he considers a friend.”

“It’s ‘Steve’, for you now?” His eyebrow lifts higher. He may refer to Cap as Steve sometimes in his head, but he usually doesn’t get that familiar out loud, and he hardly expected Natasha to either. “Okay, so are you going to fill me in on what went down over the past few months or is this just something I have to go along with?”

“Like you’re not already decrypting files to find out, Stark.” Natasha states, rolling her eyes.

“Right, so you may as well tell me. I’m going to know, eventually.”

“I am under no obligation to make your snooping easier for you. It’s not my fault Fury downgraded your clearance level.”

“You’re asking me a favor, it’d go a long way if you would at least tell me why.”

“Stark, _I’m_ asking you a favor.” She repeats his words, folding her arms over her chest and staring at him blankly, waiting for him to realize the implications. Natasha Romanoff doesn’t ask for favors, much less of Tony Stark. “Just be decent and do this.”

She looks at Cap again, her gaze lingering a moment too long. Tony’s shocked to see a great deal of emotion – Regret? Longing? Sadness? – as she watches Steve, who has left the group to stare idly at the painting above the fireplace. Natasha’s strange behavior is enough to make Tony swallow the quippy brushoff on the tip of his tongue. 

“It’s not a problem, Nat. Wilson’s welcome here. I’ve got more than enough room.” 

“Good. Thank you.” She nods once, satisfied, and leaves his side abruptly. Tony shakes off the strange, unsettled feeling that he’s left with, and plasters a grin on his face.

“Okay, punks, lemme show you the kitchen.” He claps his hands together once, drawing everyone’s attention, then sets off down the hall. “I hope one of you can cook, because I sure as hell ain’t ever going to.”

Steve stares out the large window, taking in the serene view of Central Park that his new bedroom affords him. Beyond the mansion’s manicured lawn and the property gate, across the steady stream of traffic heading southward and the uneven brick sidewalk, he can see a group of tired tourists sitting on the Richard Morris Hunt memorial. Greenery overflows the surrounding low stone wall.

The Dakota rises in the distance on the far side of the park, its eclectic mix of architectural styles still the same after all these years. He remembers its taller yet far less ornate neighbor, the Majestic, being built. He must’ve been around twelve or thirteen, he thinks; things were still being built then, before folks realized how long the depression was going to hang on.

Steve backs away, letting the curtain fall closed. Despite the beauty that surrounds and stretches out before him, he feels ill at ease, uncomfortable in his own skin. He’ll stay here if that’s what’s required – it is probably best for the team, he has to admit – but all of this is just another thing he’s going to have to get used to. 

It’s probably better than living in Brooklyn, where his old neighborhood is little more than a fading memory. 

“What do you think?” 

He turns to find Tony leaning in the doorway, looking suave and relaxed and exactly where he belongs. 

“Very…luxurious?” He’s not quite sure if that’s the right word to use, but it will have to do. He can’t get over the size of the place; he’d known people lived like this, but in the abstract, not as a reality. He tries to imagine a child running around these halls and can’t picture it. “Must’ve been something, growing up here.”

Tony just shrugs, pushes off the wall and saunters toward him. 

“I figured the view of the park would appeal to your artistic sensibilities.” He must look surprised, because Tony gives him another shrug, rubbing the back of his own neck as he continues. “Dad used to say you were always doodling.”

“Oh.” Tony bringing up Howard, bringing up the past, stops Steve short. “I…yeah, I suppose I was.”

“Okay, so…good. If you’re cool, I can arrange for my guys to pick up the stuff from your place in Brooklyn.”

“I can handle all that,” Steve replies. There’s not much there. The furniture came with the place; he’s got some clothes, a few photos, maybe a couple of books and his laptop computer. He can barely remember what the apartment looks like, considering he has spent the last few months in various hotels, safe houses, and SHIELD bases, living out of a duffel and sleeping on narrow cots, if sleeping at all. 

“It’s really no trouble,” Tony insists and Steve lets him have it, not in the mood to argue. 

“Sure. Thanks.” 

Tony stares at him for a long moment with something akin to pity in his eyes. Steve sighs and turns back to the window, futzing with the curtains just to have something to do with his hands. There can only be one reason Tony Stark is making such efforts to be kind.

“I take it you know, then.” 

“Know what?” Tony hedges, taking a step toward him. Steve can’t tell if the innocent look on his face is real or faked. It’s probably a put on.

“They told me about your…” Steve taps his own temple. “That you basically have a computer in your head now.”

“It’s a bit more complicated than that, but yeah, for all intents and purposes that’s about right. Repaired the old ticker too,” Tony replies, tapping his fingers against the center of his chest where that strange blue light used to be. 

“How much access to the mission reports and debriefing sessions did you manage to get?”

Tony doesn’t bother to look sheepish.

“Downloaded everything ten minutes ago.” Steve has to laugh. He closes his eyes against the sound of it, finding it only slightly bitter. Tony is just so…Tony. “And here I thought my last few months were rough.”

When he slowly opens his eyes again, Tony is standing at the opposite end of the window, pulling back the curtains to peer outside. 

“You want to talk about it?” The offer is surprising but that doesn’t mean Steve’s about to take Tony up on it.

“Not really.” 

He thinks he hears Tony breathe a small sigh of relief and Steve can’t say as he blames him. 

“Want to get rip roaring drunk?”

“Can’t.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s right,” Tony slumps. “How about we try anyway.” 

Steve starts to say no, the response automatic, but then re-considers. What else is he going to do? 

To his surprise, Tony and he take off without a word to anyone else, ducking out of the mansion through the back entrance and hailing a cab before Steve has time to second guess his decision. The texts from Natasha and Sam begin when they’re only a few blocks away, and cease shortly thereafter, meaning either Nat tracked him down or Tony had somehow sent word of their plans. Steve doesn’t ask; he just enjoys the silence. 

When Steve steps out of the cab and sees the familiar line of colorful jockeys lining the wrought iron balcony, he doesn’t know whether to be amused or offended. He grabs Tony by the elbow, stopping him from going down the small flight of stairs to the entrance.

“Did you honestly bring me to 21? That’s not…I never once in my life came here, Tony, there’s no way I could have afforded it.” New York has always been a different city for the rich than for the poor. 

“Still looks pretty much the same though, doesn’t it?” Tony grins like he’s proud of himself for even thinking of it. “C’mon. You can afford it now. You’ll have to borrow a jacket though, I hope they have something in Adonis-size.”

“I don’t think Adonis was noted for his size in particular,” Steve corrects, mostly to keep himself from blushing at the implied compliment.

Tony starts to respond but then clamps his mouth shut.

“Nevermind, there are just too many dirty places to take that, I can’t choose just one.” 

The cloakroom does have a jacket in his size, it seems, so after Steve is made appropriately presentable they’re lead through the lounge, past the cozy brown leather banquettes and red leather armchairs and into a dining room that looks nothing like Steve expected. Vintage toys and signed memorabilia hang from the low ceiling and despite many lamps and candles, the place is dark and slightly cramped. 

They’re seated immediately, a burnished plaque on the wall by their table bearing Howard’s name. 

“I’ve tried to get them to change it to my name, but no dice,” Tony comments when he notices Steve looking. Steve runs his hand over the deep-set lettering, feeling the engraved ridges of _Stark_ underneath the pads of his fingers as he tries to imagine Howard sitting in this very spot. “They do like their tradition.”

When Steve picks up the menu, Tony promptly takes it from his hands and sets it aside. Even though he’s feeling hungry for the first time all day, Tony orders them nothing but drinks – two for him to every one for Tony – and demands that he down them as soon as they arrive at the table. 

“I’m a master of the perfect buzz,” Tony claims. “Your empty stomach is nothing but an asset here.”

Steve smiles and drinks because he can’t bring himself to care one way or the other. It actually feels good to let Tony ply him with booze, to let Tony singlehandedly carry the conversation. It feels so easy, warm and companionable that he wonders if the alcohol might be having an effect after all. 

Tony doesn’t bring up Bucky once and Steve can’t begin to say how much he appreciates it. 

He has no idea what time it is when an unfamiliar woman approaches their table and frowns down at Tony, but the restaurant is almost entirely empty of both customers and wait staff.

“Pepper!” Tony supplies the woman with a name. His smile is sloppy; her answering one is tight and grim. Despite that, she’s still quite beautiful…elegant and slender and carrying herself with a clear sense of purpose despite the tired look in her eyes. She’s pretty much the opposite of Tony, as light as he is dark, carefully held together whereas Tony is some kind of elaborate mess. 

“Tony…it’s eleven o’clock. They closed an hour ago and these lovely people are waiting to go home.” Pepper holds out her wrist to offer Tony a view of her diamond encrusted watch. Steve tries not to balk at the small fortune she’s wearing so casually. Tony glances at it, narrowing his eyes to unsuccessfully make out the time, and then leans back in his seat lazily and lolls his head back to look up at her. 

“I think I regret buying you that.” He reaches out to tap the watch and Pepper sighs.

“Because I’d surely never be able to tell time otherwise.” Her tone is bone dry. She sets a hand on his shoulder. “However, it’s something you apparently need a refresher on.” 

“Pshh, I’m rewarding them handsomely for their patience, they all don’t mind.” He waves off her concern, but this is the first time Steve’s heard a word of them overstaying their welcome. He glances around the room, instantly ashamed.

“Oh, we should go.” He starts to get up, clumsily knocking his knees against the tabletop, pulling the checked tablecloth askew and rattling their empty glasses. Pepper reaches out a delicate hand to steady him and Steve very nearly chuckles to himself. Her support would be useless against his weight, but the thought is kind. He steps clear and starts pulling off his borrowed jacket. 

He’s slightly unsteady on his feet but he doesn’t feel drunk, exactly. Alcohol used to go straight to his head when he was small; he knows tipsy and he knows sozzled. He thinks maybe he just _wants_ to be drunk and his brain is trying to supply him with the sensation. 

“Cool down, Cap.” Tony pats his arm, haphazardly trying to pull him back down. “Say hi to Pepper, I don’t think you two have ever actually met.” 

“Hi, Pepper,” Steve says, feeling a fool. “Steve Rogers.”

“It’s nice to finally meet you, Steve Rogers,” she replies. Her handshake is surprisingly firm, reminding him she’s a businesswoman and probably accustomed to glad-handing as a matter of course. Peggy shook hands like that.

He lets go of Pepper’s hand abruptly, the intrusion of the memory unwelcome and unexpected. 

“Sorry,” Steve mumbles for his impoliteness, feeling his face heat. “I’m…I’m just going to go return this.” He holds up the jacket and then makes a graceless exit. 

He doesn’t return to the table after visiting the cloakroom, handing in his jacket along with sincere apologies to the tired-looking attendant. 

He draws in a deep breath of the night air as he steps outside. The fog in his head clears just a little. Standing at the curb, Steve tilts his face toward the inky black sky, imagining the stars that surely still exist despite being obscured by the city lights. 

Tears well up behind his eyelids and he doesn’t even know why. He hurriedly wipes them away, desperate to get ahold of himself before Pepper and Tony follow him outside. 

“Ready to go home, champ?” Tony suddenly claps a hand to his shoulder, startling Steve enough that he jumps. Steve tries to recover, play it cool, but it’s no matter. Tony’s already starting off toward Fifth, unsteady on his feet.

“Tony, Happy’s this way.” Pepper takes him gently by the elbow and re-directs him toward the Town Car waiting just past the restaurant. Steve hadn’t even noticed it when he came outside, which makes him uneasy regarding the state of his own mind. 

“Cap, you’re getting to meet almost everyone who means anything today.” Tony announces as Steve climbs into the backseat beside him. He points to the broad shouldered man behind the wheel, who in turn tilts his head up to meet Steve’s gaze in the rearview. “That’s Happy up front there. Happy, this is Captain Steven America.”

“Rogers. Steve Rogers.” Steve corrects. Tony snorts.

“Steven America is much better, you should consider a legal change. Hey, if Rhodey were here, you’d hit the trifecta, the trio, you’d collect the complete set. Pep, tell me, where is our darling James Rhodes right now?”

“He’s in Washington, Tony, and no, we cannot go there tonight.” Pepper doesn’t turn around to look at him from her place in the front passenger seat. She murmurs something to Happy, something like _And you thought you were done pouring Tony home at night_ , and Happy gives her a sympathetic look in return.

“She knows me too well.” Tony murmurs, slapping a hand over Steve’s thigh good-naturedly. Steve tries not to tense when Tony leaves it there a few moments too long. 

As Happy weaves them in and out of traffic on their way back uptown, Pepper manages to keep Tony’s attention focused long enough to discuss the agenda for the next day’s meetings. Tony listens and responds – _whines_ , really – but Steve’s not sure he’ll remember a word of it come morning. He suspects Pepper’s well aware of that probability.

Despite Pepper’s obvious frustration, there’s an easy camaraderie evident between Tony and his girlfriend and his driver that only serves to make Steve feel out of place. He contributes nothing to the conversation and no one seems to notice his silence. 

The mansion is lit up invitingly when they arrive, and Natasha greets him in the foyer. From the looks of how far she’s into the book held in her hands, it seems she’s been waiting for a while. 

He’s glad to see her and he lets himself feel it, tired of being angry about things that aren’t really her fault. Nat can’t help that Bucky remembers kissing her, holding her, loving _her_. She can’t help what Bucky remembers at all. 

She must sense the shift, because she approaches him as soon he walks in, her defenses down. 

“Hey,” she says quietly, wide green eyes searching his face carefully.

“Hey,” he murmurs back. For a moment Steve wishes she were the kind of person who gave out hugs. Seeing as she’s not, Natasha takes his hand and gives it a gentle squeeze. A faint smile softens her expression considerably. 

“C’mon.” She jerks her head toward the staircase. “You should get some sleep.” 

“Get it, girl,” Tony sassily calls after them. Steve doesn’t have to look to know that when she extends her hand behind him, the gesture she flicks in Tony’s direction is less than friendly.


	3. Spring

It’s three in the morning when Tony blearily gives up working on his latest project. He’s sure if he sleeps, the nightmares will come, but he physically can’t keep his eyelids from drooping. In his younger days he might have done a line of coke and gone back to work, but he’s beyond that kind of stupid shit now. These days, it’s just caffeine and at this point, coffee is just making him twitchy and uncomfortable. 

The lab here isn’t helping matters, filled as it is with remnants of his father’s work and not his own. When DUM-E rolls around, happy to be active again and in his zeal occasionally knocking over one of Howard’s projects, Tony never scolds him for it. He can’t outright destroy the stuff because the scientist in him recognizes its value, but if it accidentally ends up in broken pieces on the floor he’s surprisingly okay with that. 

He hadn’t counted on this house dredging up so many memories. He’d actually hoped it might make his time in New York _better_ , since the events surrounding the Tower are the events causing him such rampant anxiety. 

As much as he associates the house with his parents, he also associates the house with the flesh and blood Edwin Jarvis, and that gives him a certain sense of security. Until he’d met Rhodey and Pepper, the old man had been the closest thing to real family he had. 

With Jarvis on his mind, when Tony comes up to the first floor and sees lights on in the kitchen, his first thought is of the butler and the way he’d be up before the sun everyday, without fail. When he turns the corner, Tony half expects to find him there, puttering around the kitchen, polishing the silver. 

Instead, he finds Steve, standing over the stove. It’s been over two months since the whole crew moved in yet seeing any of them in the house still registers as a surprise. 

The teakettle is near boiling, steam billowing in front of Steve’s face, but the man keeps staring intently into space. 

“I think your tea’s ready,” Tony says as he enters. Steve starts, jolting a little and reflexively putting his hand out to steady himself. The sound of flesh sizzling against the hot metal makes Tony wince in sympathy. 

“Damn it!” Steve mutters, taking the kettle off with his left hand while he shakes the right. Tony hurries to the sink and turns on the cold tap. 

“Come here.” Tony grabs Steve by the back of his t-shirt, pulling him close enough to manhandle properly. He takes Steve’s hand and puts it under the steady stream, a sharp swath of skin pink and raised across his large palm. “First time I’ve heard you swear, Cap.”

“It’s been known to happen,” Steve mumbles darkly, actually looking a little bit angry. 

“I’m sorry about…” He runs a thumb carefully over the burn, trying to judge how bad it will be. “I didn’t mean to scare the crap out of you.”

“You didn’t, I was just…” Steve trails off. He’s quiet as he pulls from Tony’s grasp, turning off the faucet and backing away. He cradles his hand against his stomach briefly but then drops it down to his side, droplets of water shaking to the marble tile. “It’s no big deal. It’ll heal by sun up.”

Tony grabs the opportunity to change the subject. 

“Speaking of, why the hell are you awake at this ungodly hour?”

“Same reason as you, I suppose.”

“You were attempting to fix a glitch in the programming software for the climate controls on a clean energy powered sports car?” 

“No…” Steve holds back a laugh, biting his bottom lip, and Tony feels a little victorious at almost earning a smile from the man, who is clearly in a terrible mood. “But I did finish the New York Times Sunday crossword.” Steve pauses, looking at Tony sideways. “Those are still known for their difficulty, right? They were a relatively new thing when I left the city.”

Tony picks up the paper from the island counter and surveys it with a critical eye. 

“You did it in pen. Bold choice. I admire your bravado.”

“I couldn’t find a pencil down here.” Steve finally pours himself his glass of tea. “Would you like some?”

“Nah, I’m bushed, I should hit the hay.” He sets the folded newspaper down and runs a hand through his undoubtedly messy hair. He’ll need a quick shower before sleep – he’s disgusting. He feels like he’s been wearing the same black tee and pair of jeans for days. Maybe he has.

Steve, on the other hand, looks remarkably un-rumpled, hair parted and combed perfectly, pristine white tee stretched taut across his chest and the drawstring of his blue pajama pants tied tight around his hips. It occurs to Tony that given Steve’s appearance, he probably hasn’t even laid down tonight, much less tossed and turned while trying to chase that impossible slumber. 

“What are you up to today? Got any plans?” Tony should go, but he lingers instead. He rifles through the rest of yesterday’s paper to keep up a pretense that he has a reason to stay. He doesn’t feel as tired now as he did before. 

“Today?” Steve leans back against the counter, cupping his mug with two hands. He looks down at it like the answer to Tony’s question is there, maybe rising in the steam or written in tealeaves. 

Tony has no idea why conversations with Steve tend to go this way, like Steve isn’t sure that Tony’s really asking what he thinks he’s asking. They’ve had their issues and all, but Steve acts like Tony’s constantly laying out traps to trip him up and that’s never been Tony’s intention. 

Or maybe Tony’s over-thinking it and Steve’s simply too tired to hold up his end of a proper conversation. 

“Yes, today.” Steve remains silent, glancing up at him but still seeming lost. “Today…you know…” Tony looks at the date on yesterday’s Times because he doesn’t actually know the date himself. “Monday, March 4, 2013? You might be able to keep better track of time if you went to bed once in awhile.”

“And exactly how long have _you_ been awake, Stark?” Steve counters. 

“ _I_ lose track of time whilst in the throes of absolute genius and revolutionary invention,” Tony circles the island and takes up a spot directly opposite Steve. He hops up to sit on the counter. “My insane working hours have a point.”

“Ah, I see.” Steve’s words are tight and clipped and Tony recognizes immediately where he just went wrong. 

“Not that your hours don’t. Balls, that’s not what I meant.” He waves his hands furiously like he’s wiping an imaginary chalkboard of a faulty equation. “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, he has no idea what he’s doing. What I _meant_ was-“

“What you meant was that you’re managing to be productive while I’m wallowing in the fact my best friend is a brainwashed assassin who doesn’t remember me at all yet remembers being in love with Natasha.” Steve sighs deeply. “It’s fine. I know what you all must think of me these days. I’m thinking it too.”

Not having expected such candor, it takes Tony a beat to wrap his mind around what Steve said. Steve sips his tea in the meantime, watching Tony over the rim of the glass. 

“Actually… _no_ , that’s not what I – _really_? He’s in love with Natasha? That’s what’s been…” Tony slides down from the counter, his face twisting in puzzlement. “Hold up. Can we…yeah, lose this.” He reaches over and takes Steve’s mug from his hands, sets it aside. “There we go.”

Steve levels him with a flat look, clearly not game for whatever Tony’s about to do. Tony ignores him. He sets his hands firmly on Steve’s shoulders, meeting his glare straight on. 

“Just…answer me one thing. What is bothering you more? A) Barnes is a brainwashed assassin, B) He doesn’t remember you, or C) He remembers Natasha?” 

“I can’t separate it out like that,” Steve refuses the question entirely, stepping away and out of Tony’s reach. “And I can’t do anything about it. It makes sense – their relationship is more recent. She knew him as the Winter Soldier. It has to be far less…traumatic to recall her than me.” Steve looks at the floor, hopelessly forlorn. “It’s easier.”

“I don’t know…can’t imagine anyone finding it _easy_ to forget _you_ ,” Tony scoffs. He belatedly realizes how that must have sounded and he quickly shuts up, fearing that what he might say next would be even more embarrassing. Cap doesn’t need to know right now the beneath the outer, ever-thinning layer of resentment and antagonism and the second layer of tentative friendliness, there’s still a bit of fanboy love at his core. 

His silence continues long enough that Steve has to realize that if anyone’s going to speak, it’ll have to be him. Steve still waits, seemingly considering something, looking at Tony like he’s some kind of riddle he has to figure out. 

He takes a deep breath, shoring himself up. He still seems shaky though, and Tony finds himself moving in closer yet again. 

“Look, Stark. I truly appreciate your interest in the situation. It can’t be easy listening to me complain.”

“Complain?” Tony snorts. “You’ve hardly spoken about it to anyone –”

“But it’s not a problem with a solution; just something I have to learn to live with. It’s probably best I keep this matter to myself from now on.” 

It stings a little, once he parses Steve’s polite, detached speech and realizes that he has in essence been rebuffed as Steve’s shoulder to lean on. It should be fine, since Tony never meant to offer that shoulder in the first place. Instead it feels like the kind of rejection Tony hasn’t allowed himself to feel in years. 

“Okay.” Tony grinds out, putting some space back between them. “Well if you ever decide to overhaul that 1940s tendency to unhealthily repress your huge amounts of man pain, Banner’s a _great_ listener.” 

That perhaps sounded more bitter than he intended to let on. 

“Tony, I-“ Steve stops, looking distressed. 

“What.”

Steve stares at him for too long before he swallows hard and finally finds something to say. 

“Since I’m up, I…I think I’ll make breakfast for everyone today. Would you like anything in particular?”

“Count me out.” He loves Steve’s Eggs Benedict but he’s not about to give the man the satisfaction. “I’ll either be sleeping or in a conference call with the folks in London.”

“Oh, okay.” Steve frowns, wounded, and Tony feels bad, which makes him really want to punch something. How does Steve have the power to do this to him with just a look?

“But if you wanted to make that chicken and mashed potatoes thing you do for dinner, I wouldn’t complain.” 

As he walks out, Tony pretends not to see Steve smile. It feels too much like exactly what Tony really wanted.

His lines are shaky.

Or maybe it’s his hands. 

These days he’s not that sure. 

Steve tries to adjust a falling tendril of hair curling over Alice’s shoulder, but he can’t get the feel of it right. His whole drawing is too clunky and too tight. If the sculptor could somehow make the metal flow and come alive, he should be able to create the illusion with pencil on paper far more easily. 

He _should_ , but he can’t. 

He sighs in frustration and sets his sketchpad aside. The air is still heavy and damp with this morning’s earlier rain and the sky is flat gray. It makes the sculpture seem darker both in color and tone, the Mad Hatter looking vaguely sinister and Alice forlorn. 

They’re all lonely today, no children scampering around, climbing up on the mushrooms to peer more closely at Alice’s face. There are no model boats on the nearby water and even most of the birds seem to have nestled away elsewhere. The park is eerily quiet. 

One might think that the emptiness of the park might be due to the explosions that rocked the harbor yesterday. Maybe people are more likely to remain in the safety of their homes, keep their children close. But Steve knows that’s not it. 

New Yorkers don’t scare easily. 

But give ‘em a little rain, and inside they’ll stay. Navigating crowded sidewalks is difficult enough without adding umbrellas to the mix, and Steve has noticed that while umbrellas may be smaller, people today are far less cordial and careful than they used to be. Someone almost took his eye out the other day as he walked back home from the Guggenheim.

It’s drizzling a bit now, a faint mist landing on his drawing and pearling delicately across the surface of the vellum. He reaches over and closes the cover, pulls the sketchbook back onto his lap. There’s a sudden impulse to throw the whole thing out and his hand tightens on the spiral binding for just a moment, eyes seeking out the nearest trashcan, before good sense prevails. 

He reluctantly uncurls his fingers. One poor sketch is hardly reason to toss an entire book, no matter how wretched he’s feeling. 

Steve re-opens the pad and tears out his failed attempt. The sound of ripping paper is oddly soothing. He doesn’t know why, but he carefully folds the drawing in quarters before moving to throw it away. He’ll come back some other day and try again, maybe when his nerves are less shot. 

After dropping the paper into the trash, Steve flexes his hands, palms stinging. The burns he received yesterday pulling crewmen from the wreckage of their ship are mostly healed now, but the skin still feels tender. 

When he turns to re-claim his faded green park bench, he finds someone already there. 

Holding his sketchbook. 

Looking through it.

“Excuse me?” Steve hastens back, trying to keep his voice level even though his first instinct is panic, quickly followed by anger. “That’s –” He stops, words and footsteps slowing as the man turns and Steve recognizes that familiar face. “ – mine. Tony? What are you…?”

“Doing here?” Tony gestures around them both, hands and sketchbook waving back and forth. “Well, I heard a rumor this is where you were hangin’ out.” 

“What, you can use Extremis to track the GPS on my phone or something?” 

“It’s encouraging that your grasp of technology is improving, Cap, but no.” He starts distractedly leafing through Steve’s drawings again. It takes everything Steve’s got not to grab his sketchbook from Tony’s hands. “Bruce told me.”

“Ah.” Steve curls his fingers around the cuffs of his blue hoodie, pulling at the sleeves. But he can’t stop himself from giving in and reaching for his sketches. “Could you…?” Tony steps away and Steve pulls his hand back. He covers the aborted move by awkwardly running his fingers through his hair, pretending that’s what he meant to do all along. Then he shoves his hands into the front pockets of his sweatshirt to stop himself from reaching again. 

“This is all pretty good, Cap. You should show Pepper, she’d appreciate having an art buddy to chat up.” 

“It’s nothing serious.”

“For nothing serious, you’ve done a lot of work.”

“I’ve been trying to…well, it’s just that whenever I see something new in the city that I like, I draw it.”

Tony slowly cards through Steve’s myriad sketches of random street corners, storefronts, restaurants, parks, subway stations…all the little things that are different from seventy years ago. The koi pond at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden, the piers of the Southstreet Seaport, Gramercy Park beyond its closed gates…they’re all in there too, a little familiar and a little foreign. Tony pauses at a drawing of Grace Church, down on Tenth and Broadway. He shoots Steve a puzzled look. 

“I know you’re old, Cap, but you ain’t _that_ old.”

Steve answers with a half-hearted smile, trying to be amused by Tony’s joke. 

“When I see something that I remember, and there it is, just as it was, I draw that too.” There are less drawings of that variety, which pretty much says it all. “It’s not exactly a coherent project.”

“But it’s a big one,” Tony observes, flipping back through the book in the opposite direction, like he’s counting the drawings this time. “You’ve been covering quite a bit of ground.”

“I walk. A lot.” He takes the book from Tony’s hands, letting it fall back open to the drawing of the church. He traces a finger gently over the intricate French Gothic architecture, careful not smudge the lines. “This was always one of my favorite places. It wasn’t my church, I didn’t go there to worship religiously…It was just to…”

“Worship beauty?” Tony supplies, smirking. “That’s a religion of its own, Cap, especially in this city.” 

“I suppose.” He doesn’t mean to, but he drifts off into a memory of being fifteen, sitting in the rectory courtyard and drawing spring blossoming pink amongst the trees. Bucky had somehow managed to scrounge up enough to buy him fancy Sakura Cray-Pas oil pastels for Christmas that year. Steve had been torn between using them constantly to draw absolutely everything and using them only for the most special occasions in order to make them last as long as possible. He knew Bucky put in long hours at the shop just to help pay the rent; art supplies were an extravagance neither could really afford. Steve probably could’ve snuck home some ink and paper from his work at the comics studio, but it hardly felt right to do so. 

“Steve?” Tony’s voice cuts into his thoughts. Steve blinks rapidly, clearing away ghosts. “Where’d you go?” 

“I’m sorry, I just...” 

Tony saves him from having to explain by continuing on.

“I’d be offended, but I’m nothing if not entertaining, so I know it’s not _me_.” Tony teases but Steve doesn’t placate him with a smile this time. Tony leans back on the bench, stretching his arms out along the back. He taps his fingers against the wood, giving him a silently appraising look. “I get it, it’s cool.” 

“Get what?”

Tony nods down to the sketchbook in Steve’s lap.

“That. It’s hard enough for me, being here. Can’t imagine what it’s like for you.”

“It’s not that bad.”

“Sure.” It doesn’t sound like Tony believes him. “This doesn’t bother you at all.” Tony doesn’t say anything more, perhaps waiting to see if he’ll answer the implied question. 

“It’s not…I mean, it _does_ ,” Steve sighs, wondering if he can possibly explain, or if he even wants to. But Tony’s showing an interest and knowing Tony even as little as he does, he feels that should be rewarded for the effort with some small show of faith. 

“Being here is like…when you _think_ you see someone you know. Standing on a street corner or sitting at the window of a café as you pass by. You catch a glimpse of them out of the corner of your eye but then when you turn to look, it’s not at all who you thought… It’s just a stranger. That’s…everyday for me now.” 

“Huh.” Tony takes a moment to consider. “For _me_ , it’s like seeing someone you used to know, then going over to say hey and having them ignore you like a complete asshole.”

“And I doubt you’re someone who takes being ignored lightly,” Steve replies. Tony taps a finger to his own temple and then points at Steve like he’s got it in one. “Can’t see you taking that laying down. So, what’s your sketchbook?” 

Tony looks at him then with a strange expression on his face, and Steve thinks he maybe shouldn’t have asked. In a paradoxical way, Tony’s the most private public person he’s ever met. All the details in the press paint a picture of who Tony Stark is, but it’s _not_ who he is at all, not really. If he lets you get to know him even a little, that much becomes painfully obvious. 

It’s a lesson Steve learned very early in their relationship. He’s hesitant to say _friendship_ because he’s still not sure if Tony has entirely forgiven him for not realizing the difference between the mask and the man right off the bat. 

“My sketchbook?” Tony repeats, leaning forward and resting his elbows on his knees. “You mean how do I deal with it?” He moves his head from side to side, looking up at the swiftly moving clouds as he considers the question. “Uh, copious amounts of work and booze, in equal measure.” He claps a hand to Steve’s knee and uses Steve’s body as leverage to push himself up to stand. 

“Let’s walk.” Tony thumbs over his shoulder, already three steps down the path. “I’m getting unpleasantly moist out here in the wide open.” Raindrops are sending ripples pitter-patter over the surface of the conservatory water now. Steve hadn’t really noticed but now he sees that Tony’s gray suit coat and pale purple shirt are spotted, his artfully styled hair damp.

Steve tucks his sketchbook under his arm and quickly catches up, passing Han Christian Andersen and his ugly duckling. The bronze statue is another new thing he has yet to add to his sketchbook, so he mentally takes note. 

Despite the rain, Tony is leading away from the mansion, going deeper into the park, and it occurs to Steve that he never asked Tony why he’d sought him out in the first place.

“Hey, did you actually need me for something?” He asks as they fall into step beside one another. Tony quirks an eyebrow at him.

“I’m so sorry, am I intruding on your brooding solitude?” 

“I only meant that it seemed like you tracked me down, and usually when someone tracks me down…”

“It’s to sic the Star Spangled Man with a Plan on some international crisis. No, I have no damsels in distress in need of saving, I simply wanted to check in.”

“Check in.” Tony Stark’s a busy man – a busy man with much more important things to do than simply “check in” with someone like him. 

“Yeah. You know, after yesterday. When things went _boom_.”

Ah, yesterday. Steve flexes his fingers again, the pain bright and sharp. 

Yesterday, he and Sam were supposed to meet some of Sam’s friends for dinner at Red Rooster Harlem and then go to Amateur Night at the Apollo. It was supposed to be a fun night out on the town.

Instead they wound up rescuing civilians from the bay after a cargo ship exploded. 

These days, making plans seems to invite chaos. 

“You weren’t briefed?” 

“I was, but…rather hear your version of things.”

He regards Tony; briefed or not, Tony’s clearly feeling him out for something. Steve doesn’t understand what, as Tony can get access to any information he wants easier than ever these days. 

“Unfortunately there were two fatalities, but it seems the men were killed instantly when the bomb exploded. There was nothing we could have done. We managed to get everyone else to safety. It might have been easier if Thor was back on planet in order to quickly airlift more of the injured clear of the fire, but Sam is useful in that regard. As it was, we managed fine.” 

“Ah.” Tony’s jaw tightens. He shoves his hands in his pockets as they continue on, falling suspiciously silent. 

“It looks like those who were critically injured are going to make it, and Fury already has leads on the group that planted the bomb on the tanker. It may even be corporate espionage, not political terrorism. Not that that makes what happened any better, but there will be fewer global repercussions if that’s the case.”

“Right.” None of this seems to make Tony less troubled. He pauses. “I heard you got pretty banged up though. Burned the skin right off your hands by playing the hero.”

“Mostly back to normal already.” Steve slows his steps as he shows Tony his reddened palms, no longer raw and blistering as they were twelve hours ago. Tony’s face twitches as he clicks his jaw. He thumbs his nose and looks away as he starts walking again. 

“I’m working on a new suit for Sam, using my repulsor tech. What he does now can only be called ‘flying’ under the most liberal definition of the term. With those stupid wings, it’s basically like he’s strapping a jet pack to his back. He’s gonna end up like George Michael terrorizing Sudden Valley.”

“What?”

“Nevermind. After your time.”

“George Michael the pop star?”

Tony stops in his tracks, shoes nearly slipping on the wet pavement. He puts a hand out, steadying himself by grabbing Steve’s wrist.

“Okay, so someone schooled you on Wham! but not on _Arrested Development_?”

“He was in the sexuality packet.”

“Sexuality pack…” Tony trails off, utterly bewildered, and starts walking again. “I don’t even want to know. No, strike that, yes I do. There were _packets_? And what the hell were they trying to teach you? That it’s still a no-no to solicit gay sex in public rest rooms?”

Steve schools his face into the best expression of wide-eyed innocence he can muster.

“Wait, that’s not okay?” He puts a hand on Tony’s arm, stilling him. He tries to act stunned. “Is it just gay sex or all types of sex?”

Tony’s jaw actually drops and Steve can’t keep himself from laughing, giving himself away. 

“You better watch yourself, Cap, you’re starting to show a personality,” Tony warns when he finally finds his voice again. 

“Can’t have that.” Honestly, he remembers the names of every public figure discussed who “came out”, as they’re apparently calling it these days, as if they’re debutantes stepping out in fancy white dresses, hoping to catch a future husband. Terminology aside, living openly like that…at the time he kept thinking to himself: _If only Bucky were still alive, maybe…_

Maybe they could have had more than stolen kisses bolstered by drunken courage. Maybe instead of Bucky reaching over, pulling him close and pushing inside him in the middle of the night, carefully quiet and hidden in the darkness, they could have made love in the light of morning, loud as they wanted to be. Maybe instead of dancing around it and pretending it meant less than it did, they could have talked about it. Named it. Stopped denying it. 

Maybe if they had, Bucky would remember him now. 

He shoves all of that aside, knowing that if Tony is blown away by a mere joke, discussing Bucky and his own murky sexuality is out of the question. He focuses back on Tony, not about to let the man change the subject.

“As much as I’m sure Sam would appreciate an upgrade, I was under the impression that your Iron Man tech was exclusive to you and Colonel Rhodes.”

“Yeah…well. Rhodey has government entanglements and if I can’t be up there with you guys, you need _something_ to get more firepower in the sky.” He sounds incredibly disheartened. Tony traces a thumb over his own palm, as if thinking of the repulsors lit there when he donned the Iron Man suit. When he glances up, Steve sees barely contained regret in his brown eyes. 

“Tony…” 

Tony moves past a bank of trees and out onto another plaza. Steve recognizes the place immediately, the Bethesda Fountain and its Angel of the Waters having been here nearly as long as the park itself. His mother used to tell him how she symbolized the bringing of pure water to the city, ending the prevalence of cholera epidemics. 

“Always the nurse, Ma,” Steve whispers to himself, almost out of habit. It was a frequent reply of his, both lovingly fond and exasperated. 

“Did you say something?” Tony inquires and Steve shakes his head quickly, not ready to explain. It’s raining harder now, so he and Tony wordlessly agree to jog toward cover underneath the arches of the lower passage of the Arcade. 

“Man, seems not that long ago we were in this neck of the woods to send Hannibal Lecter back home to Asgard without his dinner.” Steve is able to surmise that he means Loki so he doesn’t ask for further explanation. Probably just another pop culture reference for him to maybe someday understand. 

“I’ve always loved these tiles,” Steve remarks, gazing up the ceiling. Impossibly, the Minton tiles look even better than they did in his day. 

“They took ‘em down for a whole buncha years, then did a restoration a few years back. I never really noticed ‘em much. Pretty sure the last time I was down here, I was making out with some supermodel.” Tony must mistake his appalled expression as a cry for more details. “They were having a photo shoot out at the fountain, it was like fish in a barrel, I couldn’t help myself. The _legs_ on this girl…”

Maybe it’s just the sharing of intimate details, but suddenly he feels like he and Tony are standing too close. He takes a few steps away, coughing to clear his throat.

“Miss Potts seems a pretty remarkable dame.”

“Women like Pepper use Ms. instead of Miss now, and dame isn’t exactly PC either,” Tony corrects. “But yes, I’m still wondering what in god’s name she’s doing with someone like me.”

“We understand, you know.” Steve segues back into the point he’d wanted to make before. 

“Why she’s with me? Please enlighten me.”

“I mean why you’d give up Iron Man for her. You’ve given enough. You have Miss - _Ms._ Potts to consider now, it’s important that you put both her safety and your own first.”

“Hmph,” Tony grunts. “You guys have had, what, three calls since the Battle of New York?” Steve nods. “And you never once thought to yourself that things would be easier if Iron Man were around?”

“Of course we did,” Steve replies, not about to lie. “But we never thought we couldn’t do it without you.” Tony frowns, ego wounded, and Steve sees that between the man’s guilt and pride, there’s really no way to do this that makes Tony feel better. “Stark, you’ve given us all a home. You’re instrumental in providing tech and support, not to mention all the funding you’ve offered. We all miss you in the field, but we respect and understand your decision.”

“Yeah.” Tony doesn’t sound at all convinced. He holds a hand out into the open, palm toward the sky. “We should probably get back before the sky really opens up.”

Steve knows when they go back to the mansion, Tony will disappear off to wherever Tony disappears off to, and he’ll be left alone. The thought of returning to his lovely but lonely bedroom isn’t at all appealing, but telling Tony that he’d rather stay here and stare at the rain hardly seems an option.

If the weather clears later, he’ll come back and sketch Poet’s Walk at night.

“Barnes’ birthday is on Wednesday.”

“So?” Tony fails to see the significance, but from the look on Natasha’s face, maybe he should. “Don’t tell me I’m supposed to get him a gift.” He acts dismayed, clutching imaginary pearls at his neck and fanning his face. “What does one get for an amnesiac assassin who has everything? And by everything, of course, I mean absolutely nothing.”

They come to a stop at a heavy metal door and Natasha punches in an elaborate key code that makes the lock switch from red to green. Tony has no idea what they’re doing or where they’re going, but he hasn’t known since Natasha met him outside his unpleasant six o’clock meeting with Maria Hill and he keeps following her lead anyway. 

“Steve got him something.”

“Of course he did.” They’re in a dim room now that feels like little more than a metal box.

“And when Steve called him an ‘old man’, James replied _Hey, I’m just a year older than you, pal._ ” Natasha recites this with such lack of emotion that it takes Tony a moment to fully process its importance.

“Oh. _Oh._ Oh shit.” Natasha nods. “He remembers Steve?” Natasha nods again. “I…suppose this changes things?”

“I suppose it does.” Natasha opens a panel on the wall that Tony hadn’t even noticed, and hits a button. Part of the wall slides right, revealing a viewing window into Barnes’ cell. 

Steve and Bucky are sitting side by side on the edge of Bucky’s bed. Bucky is holding Steve’s hand in his lap, and oddly seems to be tracing some kind of idle pattern onto Steve’s palm as they talk. 

Steve’s smiling a smile that Tony has never seen before. 

“He’s been with him all day. They’re…reliving old memories.”

“Including the romantic ones?” It’s a shot in the dark, something he’s been wondering about for awhile, and he figures now is as good a time as any to find out for sure. 

Natasha looks surprised, but not too surprised. 

“I didn’t know he told you.” So she’s not shocked by the question, but by Steve cluing him in. 

“He didn’t. He told you?” Tony knows Steve didn’t, wouldn’t have, but Natasha _must_ have suspected. “I mean, just look at them.” He gestures toward the pair. “There should be cartoon hearts in their eyes.”

“Maybe I made a mistake in bringing you up to speed on this, Stark-”

“Don’t worry, I won’t breathe a word to anyone about your torrid little love triangle,” Tony retorts, which only serves to make her frown more deeply. “But seriously, why _did_ you bring me in on this?”

“Lately, you’ve become his closest friend.”

“Sam-“

“Acts his age. He’s been through a lot, yes, but not like Steve. Sam’s a twenty-nine year old in a twenty-nine year old’s body. Steve’s ninety and twenty-six at the same time.”

“And that makes me…what? Older? Bruce and Clint fit the bill there too – and yes, I know Clint’s real age, that Dorian Gray punkass freak,” Tony blathers on in his confusion. “I may be the oldest but I’m by far the most immature, and I _know_ you agree. I’ve read the file.” 

“It’s not entirely about age, it’s how you behave.”

“Which, as I said-“

“How you behave with Steve.” Natasha holds up a hand to stop him talking. “You seem the most invested in Steve’s happiness.”

“I do?”

“The only time you come up for air as of late is to check on him. It hasn’t gone unnoticed.”

Tony looks toward Steve again. He wants to rebut Natasha’s statement but is momentarily distracted by watching Steve run a hand through Bucky’s messy brown hair. 

They lean in toward each other, but before their lips meet, Natasha punches the button to close the window. 

“That was about to get good, I resent that.” Tony, petulant, points at the wall. Natasha’s face is carefully schooled into blankness; if she hadn’t taken out her feelings on the button, he might not have thought she was invested in the outcome of today’s proceedings at all. 

She’s still not his favorite person in the world, he has to admit that, but he does feel slightly bad for her misfortune. The Winter Soldier may love her, but Bucky Barnes will choose Steve Rogers. Anyone in their right mind would choose Steve Rogers, were he an option. He’s sure she knows that just as well as he does. 

Natasha stares at him as if daring him to say anything more. 

He doesn’t.

“We’ll have to wait and see, but this may mean that Barnes has turned a corner of some kind. If that’s in fact the case, how would you feel about eventually offering him a home at Stark Mansion?”

His first instinct is _absolutely not_ but he doesn’t get to share it because the door to Barnes’ cell opens. 

Steve hesitates a brief moment when he sees Tony, clearly wondering why he’s there, but he turns to Natasha without commenting upon his presence. 

“He’s asking for you,” he informs her quietly, sounding defeated. He holds open the door for her but looks at the ground as she passes by and into the room. The second she’s clear he lets the door close, and heads toward the exit like the place is on fire. 

“Hey hey, wait.” Tony hurries after him, trying to grab his elbow. “What just happened?”

Steve shakes off his touch as they both walk into the hallway, but he doesn’t go far. He leans back against the wall opposite Tony and slowly slides down until he’s in a crouch, nearly sitting on the floor. He puts his head in his hands, blonde hair tangled between clenching fingers.

“C’mon, Steve. So you kissed, now people know. If you think _I_ care that you’re gay, or bisexual, or whatever label you want to slap on it, you should know I don’t.”

“We didn’t.”

“Didn’t what?”

“Kiss,” Steve says tiredly, lifting his head and looking at Tony like he should already know this. 

“But I saw-“ He points back toward the door and Steve shakes his head. 

“I don’t know what you saw or why you were watching, but nothing happened.”

“ _Something_ happened.” 

“We stopped. And then he asked for Natasha.”

“Oh.” Tony’s heart sinks on Steve’s behalf. 

“I shouldn’t be going around trying to kiss other people’s boyfriends anyway.” Steve sinks all the way to the ground, adjusting so he’s sitting on the hard tile with his legs curled in toward his body. 

Tony doesn’t manage to stifle a laugh at the thought of someone like Natasha having a “boyfriend” and that “boyfriend” being an assassin kept in high security prison by SHIELD. Steve doesn’t react to his chuckle, and he doesn’t know if that says more about Steve’s perspective on him or on the situation. Steve probably thinks Tony’s just the kind of person to be coldly amused over this kind of thing.

“Not to split hairs, Cap, but I do believe you beat Natasha to the punch by a good eighty years or so, not to mention the nearly twenty years of friendship before that.”

“He wants _her._ ” 

“It’s been a _day_. It’s ridiculous that I, of all people, am offering this advice, but be a little more patient.”

Steve laughs at that, an unhinged kind of guffaw that doesn’t sound at all right coming from him. He rubs his palms over his knees, agitated.

“Okay.” Tony takes a deep breath, totally out of his depth. He considers calling Pepper and asking her what to do, but calling her in front of Steve doesn’t seem right and he doesn’t want to leave Steve here alone so he can call her in private. He starts composing a text message to her using Extremis but gives up, not knowing how to explain this whole mess succinctly. 

Luckily, Steve himself provides Tony with some options.

“Can we leave? I mean, can you take me somewhere? I need to get out of here.”

“Where do you want to go?”

“I don’t care, Tony, anywhere. Just somewhere so loud I can’t hear myself think.”

He considers art galleries –MoMA or VOLTA or some DIA space – but he figures all that quiet and all that art wouldn’t push the past from Steve’s head. _Sleep No More_ would be a helluva distraction but might be too much for Steve to handle at the moment. A walk on the High Line would be too peaceful, a beer garden in Astoria too pointless, and anything in Brooklyn, anything at all, is obviously right out. 

A quick check of the playing schedule online and Tony has just the thing.

“You like hockey?”

He thinks it’s perfect until Happy rolls up to Madison Square Garden and Steve gets out. He stares at the building, and then casts about for a street sign, and then looks back at the building with utter dismay. 

“This is Madison Square Garden? It’s…” Steve looks to the corner again, checking their location. “But where is Penn Station?”

“Underneath.”

“You’re serious.” Steve turns around, looking again at all the surrounding buildings, at the curving wall of the sports center. “This…Penn Station used to be here. Right here.”

“It’s still _here_ , just underground, like I said. They tore the old building down in ’63, built this monstrosity instead. You should see how bad it is during the day – at night, all lit up like right now, it actually looks kind of okay.”

“Penn Station was so beautiful, how could they replace it with…this? And this is what Madison Square Garden looks like now? It used to be…it was twenty blocks uptown and…”

“They tore that down too.”

Steve has never expressed so much emotion over any of the city’s changes; he’s mostly taken it in stride, ever adaptable. Maybe Tony should’ve called in a favor and taken Steve to some place he’d never seen before, like the private rooftop garden at Rockefeller…but Tony figures the day’s events might have more to do with his exclamations than any real attachment to the old train hub. Steve was probably going to lose it over something; it may as well be this.

“What in heaven’s name were they thinking?”

“They’re going to try to renovate, move Madison Square and build up the station again. But not for at least ten years.”

“Jesus Christ, Tony, what is wrong with this fucking city?” 

Even though Steve is clearly very upset, something akin to unbridled joy wells up within Tony out of nowhere and he is overcome with what can only be termed _fondness_ for this man. He reaches up and grabs Steve by both sides of his head, pulling him down to plant a sloppy smack of a kiss to his forehead. He lets him go with flourish.

“Steve Rogers, I think sometimes you were put on ice just so you could wake up now and become my new best friend.” 

It’s quite possibly the most selfish thing he has _ever_ said and definitely the most ill timed, but to his shock Steve doesn’t seem at all put off by it. In fact, his anger and dismay seem sapped, replaced by general weariness.

“We’re probably going to be the headline in the NY Post tomorrow, I hope you know that.” Is all Steve says, gesturing to a woman with her cell phone aimed at them. Tony shrugs and blows the gawker a kiss. 

“Eh, it’s been awhile since I had a good scandal.”

“Three months ago your house exploded, you were presumed dead. Then you saved nearly everyone on Air Force One, before saving the President himself from being killed on live television by the Mandarin.” 

“And you seem unaware that three months in my world is nearly an eon when scandal is concerned,” he retorts airily as he and Steve approach the box office. Tickets are waiting for him at Will Call.

“You were able to get tickets on such short notice?”

“Oh Stevie honey, Stark Industries has season box seats at every sporting venue in the city. It’s an expense that every big business has – they make great gifts, they’re good spots for a night out on the town with clients, and are excellent places to close deals. We have our very own permanent suite.”

He’s feeling pretty good about his decision to bring Steve here until they get inside and the crush of the crowd closes in on him. He’s avoided places like this – most places like _New York_ in general – for so long that he’d forgotten what it’s like to be caught in a rising tide of moving bodies, pinned in at all sides. It’s claustrophobic, and it’s noisy, and all he wants to do is shove people away from him and bolt for the nearest exit. 

He hasn’t been to a game in years, maybe even a decade, but he’s pretty sure there must be a better way to get to their suite than this. Down here in the throng of be-jerseyed misanthropes, the yeasty smell of beer and soft pretzels is overwhelming and awful. He maneuvers Steve to the escalator, not noticing until halfway up their ascent that his grip is white knuckled on the hard black plastic bannister. He tries to let go but finds he can’t until they reach the top and it disappears from under his hand as the escalator cycles down and he’s pressed forward against his will. 

His shoes catch on the ridge where the stairs collapse, but Steve steadies him without comment, and also pulls him out of the way when he stops in his tracks, at a loss for where to go. 

“I think…this way?” Tony mumbles, pointing in any old direction. Steve follows him, but surely he must have caught on by now that Tony’s slipping. It has to show, because he’s sweating and his breath is coming in short pants. Extremis is monitoring his heart rate, his body temperature, and he curses the thing for not being able to make this all stop. But it’s mental, not physical. 

And to think he’d always been amazed by the power of the mind over the body. 

Not so amazing now. 

Steve asks him something, probably if he’s okay, but Tony can’t answer. 

Someone bumps into him and suddenly his vision is going fuzzy. He nearly keels over and when he lifts his head, Steve is bent down in front of him and doubling and tripling before his very eyes. He tries to focus on at least one of them to tell Steve that he just needs a minute to get a grip on himself, but he can’t find the breath to speak. 

“Tony, hang on, let me find a medic.”

Steve’s leaving his side and _no_ , no, he needs Steve here. He grabs Steve’s arm and, with surprising force, yanks him back. 

“No…just get us…get to the suite. I just need…I need to sit down.” 

“Tony, I really think-“

“ _Now_ , Steve.” 

“I don’t know where to go…” Steve says, sounding lost, and Tony wants to slap him. Man with a plan, what the hell. Dude can take on Red Skull and Loki and Chitauri and he’s cowed by the prospect of finding a suite with the Stark name slapped on the door? 

Steve seems to get it together and Tony feels himself being practically dragged along, barely needing to control his muscles as Steve nearly carries him through the crowd. He doesn’t think his toes are even touching the ground. Steve finds an usher, a young looking kid petrified by the sight in front of him. 

“Sir, your friend needs assistance, would you like me to call the EMTs?” He asks Steve three times, ignoring Steve’s questions, before Steve snaps. 

“Son, I need you to show me to the Stark Suite, that’s what I need.” 

Tony half-wishes Steve would apply that tone to him, and order him to get his shit together. Something about the way his voice shifts into Captain mode is just so damn effective. 

He loses track of himself until the world goes quiet around him. He pries his eyes open, finds himself staring right at Steve. Have Steve’s eyes always been so impossibly blue? When the fuck did that happen? He’s probably hallucinating. 

“You with me?” Steve asks, and there it is, Captain voice directed at him. It’s already helping. “Take deep breaths, try to match mine.” Steve inhales and exhales exaggeratedly, one hand firm on Tony’s shoulder and the other flat and steady against his abdomen. “Try to control it, push my hand out from your body when you inhale.”

It takes a minute but eventually his pulse settles and the tightness in his chest eases off. He and Steve continue to breathe together well after the attack has passed, Tony reveling in the security of it. He’s never seen Steve so focused outside of battle. 

“You clearly take after your mother.” Tony comments once he has his breath back entirely, laughing lightly. Steve squeezes his shoulder and lets go, pulling back. Tony begrudges the loss. 

“She talked me through many an asthma attack. Believe me when I say I know how you feel. How are you doing? Do you feel better?”

All Tony can do is nod, relaxing as all his body readings start sinking back to normal. He stares at Steve – at Steve’s _body_ \- knowing that Steve used to be weak and sickly, but finding it so hard to believe when what’s kneeling in front of him now is so strong and perfect. 

“Does this happen often?” Steve asks. 

“More than I’d like,” Tony admits shakily.

“And this is why you haven’t been going out much?”

“Among other reasons. PTSD has a variety of lovely symptoms.” Tony grimaces. “But for me it’s mostly anxiety. Nightmares, panic attacks, those kind of things.”

“Is this why you gave up Iron Man?” For a second Tony hears judgment in Steve’s tone, criticism of his weakness. But it’s not really there. He simply sounds curious, concerned. 

“Partially. I have to say carrying a nuke through a wormhole in the sky created by an alien army puts certain things in perspective. But it didn’t make me want to stop…if anything I needed to keep going; get back some control. But it wasn’t enough. The shit with Extremis and the Mandarin was too much for Pepper and because of that, it clearly became too much for me. When I was able to use Extremis to help repair my heart damage and get rid of the RT, it seemed like the universe giving me a sign to walk away.”

“You didn’t walk very far,” Steve observes and Tony has to give it to him for calling it like he sees it. “You do everything short of suiting up.”

“True enough. But that step between suiting up and not suiting up is one pretty big step.” 

Steve finally sits back, leaning against the blank white wall opposite Tony. 

“Do you want to go home? I’m sure seeing Pepper would go a long way to making you feel better right now.”

“Pepper’s in Japan on business. And it doesn’t really.” He doesn’t know why, because theoretically a loved one by his side should be reassuring, but when Pepper sees him like this it only makes him more upset and it all becomes a vicious circle, feeding itself into a bigger frenzy. 

He remembers that night in Malibu when he woke to find he’d called the armor in his sleep, terrifying Pepper enough to leave him sitting alone in bed, soaked in his own sweat and trembling in fear and panic. He couldn’t blame her for walking away, but that moment hangs in the back of his head as some kind of warning that this may be the one thing she can’t handle. 

“All right. At least I should get you some water. Is there any available in here or do I need to go out to Refreshments?” Steve starts to get up but Tony waves him back down.

“Sit, sit down. Just stay still for a minute.” He closes his eyes and makes a shushing noise. “This is good.” 

The national anthem is playing out in the arena, and Tony wonders if it physically pains Steve not to stand up and be respectful. He peeks at him and finds Steve staring at his own hands, apparently not listening to the sounds outside the suite. The glass rattles a little as the anthem ends and everyone cheers on the start of the first period. 

Tony stretches out his legs, knocking his feet against Steve’s ankles. He gives Steve a weak smile and Steve seems to get it, because he unbends his own long legs and they sit there quietly with their legs touching until the buzzer sounds over twenty minutes later.


	4. Summer

“I don’t understand how this man attracts all these dames.”

For some reason, this makes Tony rock with laughter. Steve doesn’t quite get why; it’s merely an honest observation. Tony laughs loud enough that Steve’s newly adopted cat, Fiorello, stirs from sleeping on his favorite place – Steve’s stomach – and, after shooting Tony a thoroughly pissed off look, digs his claws into Steve’s side as he launches himself from the couch. 

“You know, that cat’s getting mighty uppity for being on the street only a few weeks ago,” Tony comments as the tabby stalks away, tail up in the air. “So, you were saying…” 

“I was saying…I’ve been that man, I _am_ that man. And no one wants to dance with that man.” 

Tony picks up the remote control and pauses the movie, Woody Allen and Diane Keaton paused on screen in the middle of a rooftop conversation. He’s still laughing.

“It’s not really that funny.” 

“One thing’s funny – I don’t know if you’ve looked in the mirror lately, but you aren’t that man. In fact, you could walk up a random woman on the street in the middle of the day, ask her to dance with you, and she’d be more than happy to.”

“I hardly think –”

“What’s also funny is that in one evening you’ve started to sound like every critic of Woody Allen ever. Welcome to pop culture, Steve, seems like you might fit in here after all. I can’t wait until you see his later films, the age disparities are going to _freak_ you _out._ ”

“A bigger age gap than _Manhattan_?” It’s scarcely believable but Tony just nods. 

“Do me a favor and don’t look into his personal life. You might have a heart attack.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Steve picks up another DVD case from one of the stacks on the coffee table, reading the blurb for _The Purple Rose of Cairo_. Just the description makes him think back to sitting in the balcony at the Paramount, stealing sideways glimpses at Bucky, watching the flickering light play over his handsome features. Occasionally Buck would catch him looking and give him a knowing smile like they were sharing a secret.

He supposes they were. 

The marquee and façade for the Paramount still exist, but that’s all they are. He’d been disappointed to find out that the theater had long since been replaced with offices or apartments or something, leaving the historical landmark of the Paramount logo on the edifice. 

'Historical', that’s what he is now. 

Steve sets the case down. _Radio Days_ had made him nostalgic enough for one night, he’s not sure he can take any more. 

“You want to watch that one after we finish this?" Tony asks, nodding to the film Steve just put aside. 

“Don’t think so.” He opts for a different pile entirely, sorting through the cases. “How about…”

“Not _Muppets in Manhattan_ again." Steve grins at Tony's warning; since their first viewing was accompanied by Thor expressing ever-increasing confusion over his inability to understand the Swedish Chef despite his gift of AllSpeak, a re-watch without the demigod’s presence had been required. “I know Kermit’s your bro, but-“

“Gonzo’s actually my favorite, reminds me of you,” Steve retorts.

“Oh, so _that’s_ why you brought me back a stuffed chicken from your guest spot on _Sesame Street_.” He’d refused to give Tony an explanation when he’d tossed him the stuffed toy, telling the man to figure it out himself. Tony was the first person he’d thought of when he saw the crazy blue Muppet shooting himself out of a cannon. When he’d agreed to make _Sesame Street_ his first official public appearance, all he’d asked in return was some version of Camilla from the Creature Shop to take home to Tony. 

He finds a DVD with that actor he liked from _Kramer vs. Kramer_ and holds it out to Tony.

“How about this?” 

“Eeesh.” Tony shakes his head adamantly, refusing to take it. “If you think Scorsese’s version of New York is brutal, you probably won’t care for that one either.”

“I’m beginning to think I should be glad I missed the city in the 70s.” Steve puts _Midnight Cowboy_ down. Tony gathers it up along with a couple others, setting them all aside. 

“How about a musical?” Tony picks up _West Side Story_ and just as quickly puts it back, clearly thinking better of it. 

“Watch _Newsies_.” Clint suddenly vaults over the back of the couch, landing on the empty couch cushion between him and Tony. Steve barely manages not to yelp in surprise. 

“Where the hell did you come from?” Tony looks around, startled. Clint just winks at him and leans forward to help himself to a handful of popcorn. Sam and Thor enter the room shortly after, far more obvious and loud. Even when Thor tries to tone it down, it’s easy to hear the man coming. 

“Seriously. _Newsies_.” Clint rifles through the DVDs, then his mouth falls open in overdramatic shock. Kernels of popcorn tumble out onto the carpet. “Stark, why do you not own _Newsies_.”

“Because I’m not a twelve year old girl.”

Sam circles the couch and does his own quick investigation of the titles on offer, snorting in amusement. 

“Correction, he _is_ a twelve year old girl, but a twelve year old girl from the 80s.” He holds up something called _Desperately Seeking Susan_. It must be a funny choice because everyone laughs, even Thor. 

“Even you?” Tony mouths a betrayal at Thor, who chuckles good-naturedly.

“I found that film to be greatly amusing yet rather silly. But truly, this Madonna of yours has shape-shifting skills worthy of Asgardian magic. I laud her gifts. It is no wonder many of your religions worship her.”

“Oh, Thor, those are different Madonnas.” Steve shakes his head, depressed by the very idea of confusing them. 

“A for effort, Thor.” Tony points to him in recognition. “But honestly, folks, _Desperately Seeking Susan_ is an underrated gem.”

“All of these movies are set in New York.” Sam observes. “You guys got a theme goin’?”

“Aren’t like, 75% of American movies set in New York? People outside the U.S. probably think this city is all there is, the way we play it up.” Steve is surprised he understood a word of what Clint said around the new fistful of popcorn stuffed in his mouth, but deciphering garbled statements must be a new skill he’s picked up from living with the archer these past six months. “You ever think, if Hollywood stopped doing that, crazy supervillains would stop attacking it so much? It’s practically painting a bulls-eye. I mean…we deal with an absurd amount of nonsensical bullshit here, you gotta admit.”

“Man’s got a point.” Sam and Clint bump fists in acknowledgment. “Speaking of which, you guys need more disaster movies here to build this theme up, FYI. _Die Hard_ is set in New York, right?”

“Blasphemer. L.A.”

“It’s not really a theme,” Tony says, even though it kind of _is_. He and Tony hadn’t discussed it, but they seem to be living the city by staying on the couch, like the metropolis on screen is a fair trade for the one outside the window. It’s been a good week since Steve went outside for anything more than his morning run. He’d even let JARVIS order groceries in rather than doing the shopping himself.

“Hate to argue, but it is a theme, and you’re missing some classic opportunities here.” Clint holds up his fingers to start counting them off. “Tom Hanks night-“

“Oo, _Big_ , _Splash_ , _Sleepless in Seattle_ -“ Sam eagerly chimes in.

“Spike Lee night.”

“Nearly every joint he’s ever made is set in Brooklyn or Manhattan.” 

“Hitchcock night.”

“I ain’t gonna name all those.”

“ _Oliver & Company_!” Thor contributes, pounding his fist on the coffee table in joy, happy to have made a suggestion. Everyone falls silent and looks at him questioningly. He’s crestfallen over the lack of enthusiasm. “The singing dog who wears the sunglasses? No?”

“I liked the dog too, Thor.” Steve smiles reassuringly. 

“You do need more musicals here,” Clint nods to Thor’s point. 

“ _Fame, The Producers, Rent, Funny Girl_ -“

“Speaking of Babs, don’t forget _The Way We Were_.”

“Not a musical.”

“Did I say it was?”

Tony holds up both hands and Steve stops ping ponging his attention back and forth between the two debating men, gladly focusing on Tony once more. 

“Whoa, okay. You guys are actually scaring me a little. _Babs_?” He looks at Clint skeptically for some reason, which Steve has no doubt would be evident if he had the slightest idea who “Babs” was. Or is. 

“Shut it. Natasha loves Streisand.”

“What? BOOM.” Sam makes an exploding motion, signaling the back of his head blowing out from sheer shock. “I don’t know if I can look her in the eyes anymore. She’s gonna know I _know._ That’s dangerous information to have.” 

“Speaking of Natasha, where is the fair lady warrior as of late? I have not seen her much during my stay.” 

The scowls that Tony, Sam and Clint all throw Thor’s way would be amusing if Steve didn’t know they are on his behalf. They can’t keep trying to protect him from this. 

“Am I mistaken in asking after her whereabouts?” Even Thor can’t miss the warning sign just given. 

“It’s really fine, you guys. You can say his name, he’s not Beetlejuice.” Steve tells them, holding back a tired sigh. “Natasha has been staying at SHIELD headquarters for the past month in order to be with Bucky.”

“I see…” Thor nods sagely, though his eyes are still muddled with confusion. 

“Dig the Beetlejuice reference, Cap. That was almost current.” Clint bumps him on the shoulder and Steve’s grateful to him for breaking the tension.

“I got him a Netflix account for Easter – best investment ever.” Tony congratulates himself.

“For Easter? I got nothing from you for Easter,” Clint snipes, teasing. 

“The Good Lord proclaimed that Steve needed streaming movies, who was I to argue.”

Tony tends to give him gifts at the slightest provocation. Steve thought it a given that he was doing it for the others as well, slipping them small presents under bare pretenses like May Day and Mardi Gras, but maybe he shouldn’t have assumed.

It makes him feel a little odd, like maybe he should have been more grateful for Tony’s attentions now that he suspects he’s been singled out. The leather bound set of first edition Walt Whitman poetry, the boxes of used jazz records, the set of oil paints…he’d tried to refuse the gifts at first but Tony had assured him that he liked doing it and he’d stop being amused and get offended if Steve kept trying to give everything back. 

He watches Tony now as he stands up, announcing he’s going to the kitchen to grab more beer and he wouldn’t be bringing any back for the lazy bums who invaded movie night. 

“I’ll grab some for you,” Steve offers the others even though they haven’t asked. When he enters the kitchen, Tony’s rustling around in the fridge, beer bottles clinking as he grabs two in one hand and turns around. Steve grabs the door to stop it from closing as Tony steps back.

“You keep mommying them and they’re never going to leave,” Tony warns as Steve grabs four more bottles, knowing enough to grab double for Thor.

“Your mother brought you beer?” 

“You know what I mean, Rogers.” Tony actually sounds a little peeved. Steve would never say it aloud, but he’s a little relieved that he’s not the only one who prefers it when it’s just the two of them, lazing on the couch side by side for hours while Tony guides him through seventy years of cinematic history. _Intimate_ is probably not the right word for it, its connotation far too romantic, but it’s the word that comes to mind all the same. 

Tony brandishes the bottle opener and expertly pries the caps from each bottle. He flips the caps into the sink with the rest of the empties. 

“It’s like _Mystery Science Theater_ with Barton and Wilson squawking at each other and Thor asking questions every two seconds.”

“I ask questions.”

“Yeah, well. You’re not annoying.” 

“Thor’s not annoying,” Steve replies, knowing Tony doesn’t mean what he says. 

“Whatever.” Tony heads back toward the living room, sauntering at a snail’s pace. 

“We could go out tomorrow instead,” Steve suggests, surprised at his gumption for asking. Tony usually calls the shots as far as their activities go. “Probably something fascinating playing at Anthology.”

“I really should have known you’d be into the obscure arty stuff, you damn hipster,” Tony smirks, and then takes a long drink. They pause in the hallway before one of the huge windows. Tony taps a finger arrhythmically against the brown glass of his beer bottle, slipping into silence as he stares out over the back patio. The water of the pool shimmers from the underwater lights. “We could see _Gatsby_. That’s out now, right?”

“I think so. We could definitely do that.”

“You might be less excited once you discover how Fitzgerald is being interpreted in the twenty-first century, Cap.”

“I’m sure I can handle it.” He smiles as they slowly take the last few steps into the living room. 

“ _Ghostbusters_!” Clint exclaims when he sees them, popping up from his seat on the couch like an excited child. He’s holding a green shiny case with a cartoon ghost trapped in a red _not permitted_ symbol. “This, Cap, _this_. It’s a classic.”

Steve glances at Tony, who gives him a look that says _Might as well_. 

“Sure. _Ghostbusters_ it is .” He’d actually been eyeing _The Royal Tenenbaums_ since yesterday but he’s not about to argue over a film with anyone that enthusiastic. 

He and Tony can watch his choice later.

“Would you stop pacing? They’re not that late.” Pepper pulls her long hair into a loose ponytail as she sits down on one of his workshop stools. She’s dressed in her pajamas - a faded Columbia University tee and a pair of yoga pants - but Tony’s not going to join her in the bedroom anytime soon.

“They were supposed to be back yesterday, Pepper. I know I’m not known for my punctuality, but even in my book, that’s late.”

Pepper doesn’t argue it further, mainly because it’d been a perfunctory exercise in the first place, a hopeless attempt to get him to calm down. She knows better, but dealing with his restlessness and concern when the Avengers went to battle without him is something neither of them has been handling well. 

It’s strange, because the Avengers have been a team without him for much longer than he was ever with them, but it still feels wrong whenever they leave him behind. He itches for his suit of armor.

These days his nightmares are occasionally broken up by magnificent dreams of flying, shooting across the bright blue, cloudless sky at breakneck speeds as he expertly takes down threat after threat. He always lands next to Cap on some broad brick walkway in Battery Park, Statue of Liberty standing vigil beyond him in the harbor. And just as Steve turns to him, winded but smiling, his blonde hair glinting golden in the sunlight, Tony wakes up.

Tony doesn’t know what he dreads more: the dreams or the nightmares. It’s a crushing disappointment when he wakes to remember his Iron Man days are done. 

“JARVIS, call Rhodey again.” He doesn’t technically need to speak the command aloud to JARVIS anymore, but he still does so simply because he likes the interaction. Besides Steve and Pepper, he probably talks to his AI the most, which might be totally awesome or totally depressing, depending on whom one asks. 

“Calling, sir.” JARVIS announces, putting the call through the sound system of Tony’s workshop. 

Tony actually slaps his worktable in triumph when Rhodey finally - _finally_ \- picks up. 

“Tell me you have good news, buddy,” Tony begs, tapping his foot against the floor. There’s a lot of noise in the background, excess chatter and the rumble of a huge engine. “C’mon, tell me you’re all in one piece and on the way home.”

“We’re not on our way home just yet, pal.” It’d been a joint operation, chasing after whisperings of Arnim Zola somewhere deep in Austria. Government involvement outside of SHIELD made Tony uneasy despite the fact that it meant Rhodey could join the team. If SHIELD is shady, other branches of the government are living under a fucking eclipse. _Dark_ isn’t a strong enough word and _suspicious_ doesn’t cut it.

“Where are you?” Tony demands, simultaneously directing JARVIS to track Rhodey’s signal now that it’s live. 

“Doesn’t matter where, we should be back tomorrow.” JARVIS locks on. They’re just outside of Graz. “There’s been a slight situation.”

“A slight situation?” Pepper repeats, eyebrows lifting. She stands up, coming to Tony’s side. She understands the gravity of the words just as well as he does. 

“That sounds like government speak for a huge cock-up,” he grumbles, causing Rhodey to sigh heavy over the line. 

“Not quite. _They’re going to be fine_ ,” Rhodes emphasizes, which ironically makes Tony even more worried. 

“Who is _they_?”

“Okay, look….both Steve and Bucky were hit with some kind of drug. We think Zola may have tailored it specifically for those injected with the super soldier serum.”

“What kind of drug? Is Steve okay?” Tony asks, turning Rhodey’s words over and over in his mind. “And wait, what the hell was Bucky doing there?”

“His intel has been vital on these missions concerning Zola. He’s been cleared for duty for two weeks now.”

“I thought duty meant he’d be riding a desk!” Tony shouts and beside him, Pepper winces. “Writing briefs about what he remembers so other far more dependable and less _psychotic_ people could chase down the leads!”

“I guess the line is that Fury thinks it’s worth the risk.”

“That man’s idea of acceptable risk is ludicrous.” Tony is dumbfounded by the lack of reason in this whole situation. “Is Steve going to be okay? Tell me he’s all right.”

“The drug seems to have brought out some…latent aggression.”

Tony has a feeling this could only mean one thing.

“Meaning he and Bucky had an epic smackdown.”

“Affirmative. Even the Hulk said whoa.”

Tony pauses, imagining this in his head and trying to decide if the prospect of it angers or excites him. 

“Cap won?”

“Pretty hard to tell. They’re both locked up until it wears off. Natasha’s with Steve now.”

“Natasha’s with Steve?”

“Yeah.”

“Not Barnes?” 

“Yeah…said Rogers needed her more.” The tone of Rhodey’s voice tells Tony that his friend clearly has no idea why Tony finds this so strange. 

“That’s…yeah. Okay.” Tony processes this information, wishing he were there instead. Right now, Nat’s probably one of the last people Steve would want to deal with. But at least he’s in one piece. “Okay. Good. But other than that…?”

“Mission was a success, kind of. No Zola, but he was definitely here at some point and had to leave in a hurry. He left a lot behind. We have new tech and information for you to sort through when we get back.”

“Christmas come early.”

“Tone, I gotta go, but try to calm yourself the hell down. You sound nuts and you gotta be driving poor Pepper crazy.”

“He is,” Pepper pipes up. 

“God bless you, Potts,” Rhodey says, and Tony can practically see him saluting her from afar. “Take a breather, Stark.” He disconnects before Tony can say anything more. 

“The fact that there is a drug out there designed to make super soldiers go haywire leaves me very uneasy,” he tells Pepper. “JARVIS, bring up all we have on the serum and get in contact with SHIELD about rushing that information back from the mission.”

“By contact, do you mean through official channels or alternative means, sir?” JARVIS requests.

“Whatever works, JARV,” Tony replies, waving him off to work freely. 

“Tony.” Pepper sets a hand on his shoulder as he sits down and pulls up the holo. 

“Hmm?” He’s only giving her half his attention, if that, and he knows it’s probably going to come back and bite him in the ass soon.

“Tony, since you know that everyone is going to be fine, why don’t we take a break and at least get something to eat, if you refuse to sleep. You’ve been down here since lunch yesterday. You can think about it and eat at the same time.”

“Okay, I’ll order something in.”

Pepper actually huffs.

“Tony. I meant think about it away from the computer.”

“You do realize I _am_ a computer, basically.”

“You know what I mean, don’t be a smartass.” 

“Time is of the essence here, babe.” He turns to her and gives her a distracted, placating kiss on the cheek, squeezing her hip. “A drug that affects Steve is a major red flag. JARVIS, any chance Bruce will be back before the rest of the gang?”

“His itinerary shows no such alterations, sir. Would you like me to contact Dr. Banner and request his immediate return?”

“At least run it by him. We can do more good together, he’ll probably agree.”

“ _Tony._ ” Pepper takes him by both shoulders now, forcibly turning him around to face her. Sometimes he forgets she’s actually rather strong, even without Extremis coursing through her body. “No amount of work is going to make up for you not being there.”

“Wow, Pep…that’s what you really think?”

“No, that’s what you think. Every time the Avengers Assemble, you spin out of control like this. I never thought…”

“Never thought what?”

“I don’t know.” She runs a hand over her hair, sighing in frustration. “Is this not enough for you?” Pepper gestures between them. There are tears in her eyes and Tony wonders how long she’s been on the verge of crying without him noticing. “With me running the company, and let’s face it, you basically running the Avengers Initiative, we barely see one another. The fact that you’re not in the armor rushing headlong to take on every danger does makes you safer, Tony, but it doesn’t make you _here_.”

JARVIS shuts off the holo on his own, evidently throwing in his own two cents as to what should rate Tony’s undivided attention at this moment. 

Tony ignores the niggling sensation in the back of his mind that keeps insisting that the issue with the serum should trump his personal matters. He takes Pepper in his arms, forcing himself to focus instead on the feeling of her slender body fitting against his, her skin warm beneath his fingertips. Her hair smells like lavender. 

He actually hates lavender, but he doesn’t think he’s ever bothered to tell her that. Someday when she’s not three seconds from leaving him he’ll bring that up.

“You’re right, Pepper. I know you’re right, you know you’re right.” Tony pulls back slightly to look at her, brushing a stray strand of her beautiful copper-colored hair out of her pale blue eyes. “It’s guilt. You’re not the first person to say so.”

“Tony…don’t you think you’ve done enough? You don’t owe them anything. You certainly don’t owe them your life.”

“It’s hard to play Monday morning quarterback, Pep.”

“Then maybe you should just walk away.”

“There’s no way –”

“You can still fund them, supply them with tech if they need it, without living with them. We could re-build the house in Malibu, put some distance between you and the team.” _You and the team._ Tony repeats in his head, hating the sound of it. Two separate things. You. And the Team. “You’re clearly unhappy in New York anyway, it might be best to move on.”

“What do you mean, I’m clearly unhappy here?”

“Tony. J.D. Salinger was less of a recluse.”

“I’ve been busy. It’s hard to have fun when you have exploding arrows to design. Well, okay, the exploding arrows were fun, but you know what I mean.”

“You do realize you’re only making my point for me?” Pepper says. Tony frowns, annoyed. 

“I can’t abandon the team, Pepper. I’ve already let them down enough by giving up Iron Man in the first place.”

She steps out of Tony’s embrace and forces him to look her in the eyes. He hates when she does that. It makes him feel like a child being scolded. 

“Then maybe you and I need to take a break. Take some time apart so you can think about what you really want.”

“I don’t want _that_ ,” Tony insists, though even as he says it he realizes he’s not sure he means it. 

“I’m going to go to London in the morning. We both need some space.” It sounds final. It doesn’t sound like ‘space’, it doesn’t sound like ‘time apart’; it sounds like a break up. “I’ll stay at the Waldorf tonight.”

“Pepper…” Tony starts to argue, but he doesn’t know what to say. Pepper stares at him, waiting, and all Tony can do is sigh. “Call me when you land and let me know that you’re all right. Please.”

Pepper holds his gaze for a moment longer and then something about her seems to shift. She smiles brokenly.

“I will. We’ll talk.”

“We’ll talk,” Tony repeats. He looks back at the holo, waiting until her footsteps recede and the door closes before brushing the tears from his eyes and getting back to work. 

“Okay, JARVIS, what’ve you got for me?”

The grounds are beautiful. Despite its boring and clinical name, the Unisphere sparkles prettily in the light reflected through it from the fountain and surrounding pool. He and Tony sit on the circle’s edge, the sun-warmed concrete slowly cooling underneath them as night falls, and the two of them trade stories about World’s Fairs and Stark Expos. Steve tries to recall how Flushing Meadows had looked back in ’39 and in ’43, all decked out with promises of the future, but he doesn’t have the way with words that Tony has. Without his drawing material, he’s at pains to fully describe how it all seemed.

They’d spent the evening at Citifield watching the Mets get solidly beaten, but Steve could hardly bring himself to care. It’s the first ball game he’s been to since he’s been back and he’s relieved to discover there’s still something inherently timeless about the game. The new stadium replaced the old one recently, which makes Steve laugh, as the “old” one, Shea Stadium, hadn’t even been built until nearly two decades after he went under. 

He’s taken to saying _Time’s a funny thing_ and moving on, because otherwise he might cry. 

He and Tony strolled the immaculate gardens of the public grounds surrounding the nearby tennis complex as they waited for the crowd to dissipate, and had wound up sitting together in the shadows of Arthur Ashe Stadium for much longer than planned. 

When he realizes the time, Steve is honestly surprised by how caught up in the evening he must have become to let the hours slip past so easily. He hopes that in his social gracelessness, he didn’t miss any cues that Tony wanted to leave. 

They’d taken a car service out to Queens, but when Steve suggests that they head back into Manhattan, Tony shocks him by countering that they ride the 7 back instead. While he’d thought that the subway might make Tony uncomfortable, he figures Tony knows his own limits better than he does so he tells Tony to lead the way.

The train is empty enough now that he and Tony don’t necessarily have to sit directly beside each other, and Steve misses the close proximity of their seats at the ball game, with Tony’s elbow jostling his side, his thigh pressed casually against Tony’s knee. Steve had much preferred that to the roomy box seats Tony originally proposed. 

But even with an empty seat between them now, the long ride passes by as if a mere moment. Steve doesn’t want the night to end, and Tony gamely suggests that it doesn’t have to. Steve doesn’t ask where they’re going, trusting Tony to decide.

The mood shifts as the train trundles into the 42nd Street station, and he’s honestly not sure if it’s Tony that’s apprehensive or if it’s him. Their car had been getting progressively more congested since Queensboro Plaza, but that’s nothing compared to the teeming platform that awaits them at Times Square. 

Even though Tony had handled the crowd of the baseball game with remarkable aplomb, Steve fears this may be different. When the doors open, Steve acts on instinct, grabbing Tony’s hand and taking the lead, using his considerable size to clear a straight path through the swarm of people toward the stairs. He knows he can be intimidating when he absolutely needs to be and at this moment, he needs to be. 

Everyone gets out of his way.

It’s not until they squeeze onto the southbound N train that it occurs to Steve that Tony had been fine throughout, calmly calling over Steve’s shoulder to direct him where to go as Steve practically dragged him along. 

There’s no place to sit and they’re forced to stand close to one another, Tony’s smaller body seeming to fold into his own. Steve looks down at their entwined fingers and slowly disentangles, reaching to grab the handrail instead as the train lurches into movement. His palm is sweaty now, and he’s feeling sheepish about the whole thing. He expects Tony to be irked; instead he seems incredibly amused. 

“Protective mama bear is surprisingly sexy on you. I had _no_ idea I’d go for that but I guess I have a new kink.”

“I’m sorry about that,” Steve apologizes anyway, ignoring Tony’s innuendo but acknowledging the underlying point. “I thought that you might…” He makes an _and so on and so on…_ motion with his hand, leaving Tony to fill the blank silently, not wanting to embarrass the man any further. 

“Freak the fuck out?” Tony never has believed in silence. “Strangely enough, I haven’t felt one bit anxious tonight. At first I thought it was just because Bruce and I smoked up this afternoon-“

“You and Dr. Banner did _what_?”

“But potent as that shit was, it woulda worn off by now. This does, however, lead to an important question I’ve been meaning to investigate – I know you can’t really get drunk. Can Captain America get high?”

“I’ve never tried, I wouldn’t know.” Steve looks up at the ceiling, praying for patience.

“You’ve never smoked.”

“Cigarettes, sure. But that’s it.” Tony tilts his head back to look at Steve better, narrowing his eyes. “What?”

“Captain America shouldn’t smoke cigarettes.”

“Everyone smoked back then, we didn’t know what you know _now_ , Tony. And weren’t you just plotting to get me high on marijuana?” 

“I think it’s highly probable that every time Captain America even _says_ ‘marijuana’, somewhere a kitten dies. A cute, fluffy kitten.”

“Could you stop calling me that?”

“Captain America?” 

They’re getting a few odd looks now from the people immediately surrounding them – because no matter what the clichés are, some people in New York _do_ look – and Steve can hear someone whisper the name Tony Stark in disbelief. _He wouldn’t be on the **subway**_ comes the reply, and Steve thanks God that Tony hasn’t managed to completely change his reputation. Billionaire playboys don’t ride the N train.

He stares at the garish TCI advertisement for as long as he can stand it, then switches to deciphering the _Si ves algo, di algo_ poster, afraid to make eye contact with anyone and encourage further speculation as to their identities. 

He just _knows_ Tony is smirking at him. 

They exit at Eighth Street and make it to Washington Square without incident. The park is empty of street performers, skateboarders and tourists now, the chess tables abandoned and the dog run closed. Steve empties his pockets of change for a homeless man slouched on the park bench; Tony gives Steve a look but nevertheless hands the man a twenty. NYU students, loud and carefree, heading out to bars on Bleecker or MacDougal cut across the concrete paths of the park occasionally, but no one lingers. 

Tony stops under the arch, the white stone basking in the glow from the floodlights at its base. Steve gazes up at it and then down the Fifth Avenue thoroughfare back in the direction of Union Square. He’d never been able to see the Arc de Triomphe or the Champs-Élysées while in Europe, having crashed into the Artic before Paris was liberated from Nazi control, but he always imagined that it’d just feel like a needlessly bigger version of this. 

“I’ve been to Paris many a time, Cap, so I’ll tell you that this Mini-Me pales in comparison,” Tony retorts when he says as much. “Someday we’ll go and you can see for yourself.”

“I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

“You’re such a New Yorker. Everything here is better than everywhere else.” Tony sing-songs wryly. His accompanying grin is infectious. 

"You know, you look younger when you smile," Steve comments, which only serves to make Tony's grin grow wider. Because of Tony’s glib refusal to take most things seriously, Steve never thought of Tony as someone who smiled rarely. But it’s something he realizes now, simply because if Tony is smiling _more_ , that must mean he had been smiling much less before, even if Steve had failed to take note. 

"Are you saying I look old otherwise?" Tony asks and Steve rolls his eyes, giving Tony a small shove as they continue their meandering walk through and around the square. 

“That’s not what I meant. You just look more…alive.”

"You really are _terrible_ at compliments. Both giving and receiving. Oo, that ended up a little dirty." Tony looks pleased with himself, his eyes dark, pupils dilated in the dim light of the park. His hair is in disarray and has been ever since he took his baseball cap off during the sixth inning, and coupled with his blown gaze, he also looks wild and…aroused. 

Steve tries to pretend he didn’t just have that thought but it doesn’t work. He knows Pepper and Tony are on the outs, but that doesn’t give him the right to think such things about his friend. He coughs, shaking himself out of it, and then falls back into the rhythm of Tony’s banter.

"And what should I have said instead?”

“Oh, I don’t know. I don’t suppose too much can be asked of you, but I must admit I expected something old-fashioned and lame like: ‘Your smile makes me all twitter-pated.’ At the very least.”

“I'm not trying to court you, Tony, I was just trying to tell you something nice about yourself." Considering the slightly romantic bent of his thoughts over the past few minutes, the conversation is becoming uncomfortable. Steve looks at the windows of the townhouses lining the opposite side of the street, focusing on the hundreds-year-old architecture just to still his racing thoughts.

"Courting?” Tony starts, slapping Steve’s elbow. “Cap, I will pay good money to witness you courting _anyone_."

"Maybe someday I'll find someone worth courting and you can witness my humiliation for free," Steve counters. He'd tell Tony to save his money and be patient, but he's beginning to doubt he'll ever find that right person. It all feels so cruel, to have lost both Peggy and Bucky, only to have Bucky back again, so close, yet entirely out of reach. He supposes it serves him right, really. He'd let Bucky push him toward Peggy, and now he's reaping what was sowed. Bucky has his own girl now. 

"What about Agent 13? Carter? What's her first name, Sharon? She's a looker, and she's more than ready to wave your American flag if you know what I mean."

" _Tony._ " Steve thanks the cover of night for hiding his furious blush. 

"She's been interested ever since she assisted on the Winter Soldier mission. I understand why you weren't all over that then, given the, uh, circumstances…” Tony hitches over the words, actually looking a bit uncomfortable himself. He always gets a pinched look when Bucky comes up in conversation. He recovers quickly and continues. “But come on. It's been over six months, maybe you should give her a call."

"She's Peggy's grand-niece. It's too strange."

"Excuses. I don't even think I ever _met_ any of my Great Aunts, couldn't pick 'em out of a lineup if I tried. The connection between Peggy and Sharon is just close enough to make for a nice story and far enough to keep it from being creepy."

"She was inspired to become an agent because of Peggy's stories. Which included stories about working with _me_. I can’t imagine what Peggy told her.”

“Now I’m interested, what _could_ Peggy have told her?” There’s much wiggling of eyebrows, a bit of wagging tongue. Steve ignores the antics.

“In the end, I'm afraid pursuing anything with Agent Carter would be leaning less toward nice and more toward creepy."

"You say tomato, I say tomahto." Tony shrugs.

"The line's actually 'You _like_ tomato and I _like_ tomahto'."

"And I'm beginning to like you less and less with every passing day." 

"Maybe we should call the whole thing off?" Steve kids and Tony groans. "You very rarely quote anything from before the 60s, let alone the 40s, Stark, let me enjoy the moment."

"According to you, I didn’t actually quote it, but, okay…" Tony allows it, going down without more of fight. Steve starts to ask where they're headed to, as they seem just to be circling the park aimlessly, when he hears Tony softly humming the tune under his breath. Tony notices him noticing and his answering smile is surprisingly shy. 

He surprises Steve further by dancing casually, expertly executing a pair of tap moves as easily as walking in step. He ignores Steve’s flabbergasted look; he just winks and ambles on, continuing to hum the song to himself. 

"I'm sure some place in the city has gotta be showing old Rogers/Astaire flicks sometime, we should keep an eye out. We could make a night of it."

"We could watch them at home, I'm sure."

"Sure we could. But we could also go to Delmonico's, get a decadent dinner with huge, juicy steaks and the highest of high end scotch, take in a show, maybe go dancing ourselves..."

"Tony, now it sounds like you're courting me." Steve teases.

"What if I were?" Tony asks, and for a moment Steve thinks he's serious. His heart does this weird fluttery thing all on its own, like it's stopping and re-starting independent of any interference from his mind. 

Just as Steve starts to put a name to that warm feeling coiling tight in his chest, Tony folds his hands under his chin and bats his eyelashes at him in a ridiculous manner worthy of Betty Boop. 

Steve quickly forces a laugh, though it comes out strangled and strange. 

"So, you clearly have plans for our next outing, but where exactly are we going now?" They stop on the block between Washington Place and West 4th and Tony looks around as if trying to decide where to go. There’s a subway near here, Steve can smell it wafting up through the sidewalk grates, so he angles toward 6th Avenue. "We should probably head back. The game ended hours ago, at the very least Sam will send out a search party."

"The night is young. Text Sam and tell him to keep his granny panties on. I have just the place to take you.” Tony points east, the opposite direction. “Are you hungry? Who am I kidding, of course you are." 

It turns out that “just the place” is an automat on St. Mark’s called BAMN! While it’s hardly a Horn & Hordart, Steve’s tickled pink that Tony found it and thought to bring him here. 

As he and Tony tear into bacon cheeseburgers, Steve thinks that maybe being here, at this place where the old has crashed into the new and made something special, well…it might just be all right.

It’s a mess. From the air, it looked bad, but on the ground it’s even worse.

In his gut, Tony knows he made the right call but he’s sure he’s going to regret this later.

But that’s assuming he makes it out of here alive. First things first. 

“Tony?” He must really break Steve’s concentration because his shield drops, allowing a blast to catch him right in the stomach. Tony winces, waiting until he sees Steve shake it off before saying anything more.

“Eyes on the prize, Cap,” Tony warns, and he swears Steve looks up into the air and _glares_ at him from behind the cowl as he swoops by. 

“Iron Man, you’ve been off active duty for months. Vacate the premises immediately.” 

And Steve’s angry. Screw that. Sam’s laid up in med bay so Tony’s here to help, and they need it. 

They need _him._

He shoots down two combatants on Natasha’s tail – what else to call them, he doesn’t know, because he’s never seen creatures like this before, seems to be a running theme these days – and then takes out one that was this close to taking off Clint’s head with a swipe of its strange and huge ax-like weapon. 

“You’re welcome, fancypants,” Tony pipes over the comm, doing a quick victory swirl around Clint before jetting upward to get another full aerial view of the pieces at play. From what he can gather, the creatures seem to have some kind of breathing apparatus over their faces, like gas masks with hoses running down to canisters on their belts. The most important piece of that observation is that hitting those canisters makes them explode, something that Natasha has picked up on and is using to her advantage. 

Thor’s atop the Flatiron Building, attempting to re-direct the hordes as they swarm up Sixth Avenue. The ranks of these pale blue, humanoid _things_ seem to be appearing out of nowhere like they’re being teleported down to Earth, replenishing in flashes of blue light over a strange fissure in the ground somewhere near the northern border of Koreatown. 

That reminds him, Steve had mentioned wanting to try Korean barbecue as the 7 had rattled through Flushing the other night. He makes the suggestion for post-battle lunch and Natasha cuts him off before anyone can answer.

“So not the time, Stark.”

His attention is diverted from snarking back at Widow by the sound of Hulk’s roar, the not-so-jolly green giant crashing back into view and bringing half of the Macy’s storefront down with him. 

“Don’t look now, Cap, but Hulk’s destroying more landmarks.” 

It’s time to bring on some serious action and get this shit done before any more of old New York is smashed before his eyes. The last thing he needs is Banner setting to work on the Empire State Building; Steve would never recover. Tony arms the missiles in his shoulder panels, Extremis working with JARVIS to ensure accuracy.

“Everyone get down.” Tony announces, red circles lining up and locking in his field of vision, targets acquired. His missiles don’t miss and the field is cleared for a moment, allowing everyone to catch a much-needed breath before the next wave reaches their choke point. The explosion is beautiful.

“Did you all miss me?” Tony cackles. This feels great. It’s like riding a bike. It’s actually easier than riding a bike, more natural. It’s like breathing. He’s finally breathing. 

“This one’s going out to the lovely redhead standing in that pile of goo in the middle of Herald Square: _People…people who need people…_ ” He croons.

Natasha spins around, seeking out Clint on his rooftop.

“Barton, _I am going to kill you._ ”

“What’d I do?” Clint squawks, changing his position on his perch to get eyes on Nat. Tony doesn’t blame him.

“You were the only person on _earth_ who knew.” 

“Aw, Nat, laugh a little. Don’t rain on my parade,” Tony crows.

“I’m sorry, but who is this douchebag?”

The question comes in a voice Tony doesn’t recognize, meaning it can only be one person. 

“Attention on the fight, less chatter, team,” Cap interrupts sternly, but Tony’s already pinpointed the location of Bucky’s comm signal. The sniper is on the roof of the Herald Square building itself. 

Tony zooms toward the dark figure, coming to a quick but graceful upright halt directly in front of Bucky’s line of sight. 

“’This douchebag’ is Iron Man,” he informs Bucky, hoping the man is at least smart enough to understand that Tony’s ability to kick ass ultimately far outstrips his. “And I’m Steve’s best friend.”

For a terrifying second, Tony thinks Barnes is going to take a shot. His finger twitches on the trigger. But he stops, for which Tony thanks god because Steve doesn’t need to deal with Barnes, of all people, attempting to kill his own team member. 

He hovers in front of Bucky for a moment more and then tilts his head, surveying the force field that blocks any of them from getting too close to the opening in the ground. 

“I’m also the one who’s gonna save our asses.” Tony announces, already flying toward the undulating light. “I’ve calculated a weakness in the energy field. If I hit the barrier at high velocity directly at the center of the dome, I should be able to penetrate it and perhaps disable it. Whatever’s there is allowing these creeps to complete the circuit and teleport down.”

“You don’t even know what’s creating it, much less how to stop it.” 

Cap’s words are the last thing he remembers before waking face up in the street with the Hulk towering over him.

“Fuck, I’ve _got_ to stop doing this.” He coughs, sitting up. The Hulk reaches over and shoves him back to the ground, grunting. 

“Tin Man stay down.” 

Steve’s cowl is pushed back and he looks like there are a lot of things he really wants to say. He opts for putting a hand over Tony’s shoulder, patting the dented curve of metal like he’s simply too tired to do anything else. 

“One of these days you’re going to listen to me.” Steve murmurs, and something like relief washes over Tony. He reaches up and pats Steve’s dirty cheek.

“One of these days,” he promises. He’s still busy staring up at Steve and wondering when his luck is going to run out when Coulson and his new band of lackeys show up, ready to do the investigating now that they’ve finished up the battling. 

Tony gives Phil the obligatory grief while Steve tries not to make the man giddy and nervous in front of his staff. He’s not entirely successful. Phil trips over debris twice before realizing he can’t walk and talk to Captain America at the same time without making a fool out of himself. 

“Do you have any plans for your birthday? It’s only a few days away.” Phil is asking of Steve when Tony comes back to the conversation. He’d briefly paused to wow the geeky pair of Fitz-Simmons with the astute scientific observations he’d still somehow managed to make while under fire. Beside Coulson, Agent Ward snorts derisively at the level of swooning currently underway. 

Tony takes pity on Coulson and extricates Steve, but not before “accidentally” knocking Ward to the ground as he passes by. 

“Ride back home?” Tony asks, pulling Cap in tight and taking off, happily leaving the battle wreckage for SHIELD to clean up. 

It’s hours too late and well after dark by the time he slips into his and Pepper’s shared bedroom. He hasn’t packed up her things, because they never officially ended it, but he knows what awaits him now because it’s the only option he left her.

Her closet is empty, her things gone from the bathroom. She must have cleared out the second she saw the news report.

Lying on the bed is one of his faceplates, from one of the suits he was no longer supposed to be making. Pepper must have known all along, which really isn’t all that surprising. Tony lifts it and finds a piece of Stark Industries stationery underneath it. Pepper’s left him with the delicate scrawl of far too few words.

_Tony –_

_I never should have asked you. I knew better._

_You are Iron Man._

_I’ll always love you,  
Pepper_

He wakes the next morning and finds himself safely tucked into bed and the empty bottles of Jack carefully placed in the trash. He takes the aspirin and drinks the water left out on his night table, and mentally lists all the people in his life who he’s managed _not_ to drive away. Rhodey. Happy. Steve. 

Steve. 

He still has Steve.

"We really should have seen that coming."

It should have been obvious that taking Thor to see Shakespeare in the Park at the Delacorte would end in some kind of disaster. That the performance was _The Comedy of Errors_ portended trouble. 

"At least it was the last show of the run. I had someone over there to fix that huge hole in the stage by the next morning, they should be back in tip-top shape before _Love's Labour's Lost_ rehearsals even begin." Tony assures Steve, as he knows Steve felt terrible about what had happened. Personally, he’d found it hilarious. And educational, as he never knew Asgardian theatricals usually included audience participation. "No one seemed too broken up about it. I think a member of the stage crew actually asked Thor if he'd be able to provide directed thunder and lightning for a staging of _Hamlet_ in the future. Apparently it'd really punch up the scene where Hamlet confronts his father's ghost."

Steve looks up and down Surf Avenue, feeling content as Tony rambles on beside him. They turn down Stillwell to make their way toward the boardwalk and Steeplechase Pier, where there's a cool breeze coming off the ocean to provide brief respite from the summer heat. 

Fourth of July at Coney Island. 

When Tony had suggested it, he’d assumed that it would be a team outing, but it’s just him and Tony, on his birthday. It’s the best gift he could have received, even if it meant enduring Tony’s endless ribbing about sharing a birthday with the nation. It had taken him tracking down his original birth certificate in some World War II archive before Tony believed he’d really been born on that date and it wasn’t just propaganda. 

He digs into his third Nathan’s hot dog, handing Tony another as well, which the other man takes with disdain. It doesn’t stop him from eating it. 

“Gray’s Papaya is better,” Tony comments, wiping ketchup from his lips, but Steve doesn’t really care if Gray’s is better or not. They can keep their recession specials; he’ll take the Coney Island boardwalk any day. “I’m glad we already did the Cyclone, I don’t think I’d enjoy it after this.”

They’d done a couple of the newer, faster rides, including this Boardwalk Flight thing that honestly paled in comparison to taking to the sky with Iron Man, but it’d been a thrill to ride the Cyclone again. He clutched Tony’s hand as they crested the first hill, the same way he’d once clutched Bucky’s, and Tony held on tightly until the ride ended. 

Tony won a few games in Luna Park, happily shouting “Science!” whenever he outsmarted what was rigged up. Steve’s been carrying around a Hulk plushie for half the day as a result. 

Now, Tony downs the last bite of his dog and crumples up the remaining trash. He prompts a loud belch by bumping the center of his chest with a fist. The gesture makes Steve think of the arc reactor, makes him wonder if Tony ever misses it. It’s a crazy thought, because the RT was a reminder of a great deal of painful experiences in Tony’s life, not to mention being actually, physically painful to have in his body, but sometimes feelings aren’t logical.

“What? Okay, _Excuse me_.” Tony mistakes his intent gaze as judgment for his lack of manners. “I’m sorry, I’m a man; men burp.”

“I didn’t say anything.”

“But you were thinking it.” Tony points at him, eyes narrowed. He runs a hand over his goatee, making sure he hasn’t left any mess behind, and then throws his trash into a nearby can, tossing it in a perfect arc. “3 points.”

“Did the arc reactor leave a scar?” He knows the question seems apropos of nothing, but Tony only hesitates a second before going with it. 

“No, Extremis took care of it. Why do you ask?” 

“I just…” Steve touches his own chest. “I was thinking about it, is all. Do you ever wish it was still there?”

“Well, I never needed a flashlight,” Tony says, smirking. “But it really made getting to sleep a bitch.” 

“I’m being serious.”

“So am I.” He retorts, but then really does offer a thoughtful answer. “No, really, I can’t say as I miss it. Sometimes I still wake up and thinking it’s supposed to be there, panic when it’s not, but overall it feels good to have my heart back in one piece. I mean, having the RT nearly killed me more than once.”

“What?”

“The palladium core was poisoning my bloodstream. But, then I made vibranium to replace it, and all was well.” Tony says this a little too casually, like he knows the fact he was once _dying_ is a big deal but doesn’t want to get into it. Steve obliges him by letting it go, because he knows Tony actually divulges more when allowed to do it on his own terms. 

“You made vibranium?”

“Yep.” Tony grins. “Same thing as your shield, Cap. _But_ , as poetic as that is, it’s better not to have a chunk of metal in my chest cavity.”

“Poetic,” Steve repeats to himself quietly, turning the word over in his mind. The piece of vibranium once kept in Tony’s heart might have been just that, but he thinks the word is better suited to describe how they seem to have found each other now. 

“So…” Tony adjusts the straw in his cup, pushing around the ice. He sips the last bit of his soda, pursing his lips and looking at Steve thoughtfully. “So. Why the sudden interest in the arc?”

“It’s not…” Steve starts, and then hesitates. He leans against the railing, looking out toward the ocean. Tony mimics his stance, resting his elbows on the worn wood and bending slightly forward. “There’s just a lot about you that I don’t know yet.” 

“Yet.” Tony echoes, as if pointing out there’s plenty of time left to learn. Steve tilts his head to look at him and finds Tony staring right back, directly into his eyes like he’d just been waiting for Steve to turn to face him. Tony’s eyes are wide and dark and unblinking, his expression soft, maybe even fond. The breeze rustles gently through Tony’s dark hair and Steve curls his fingers around the wooden railing to keep himself from touching. 

In the distance Steve can hear the music from the carousel, light and airy, drifting down the boardwalk. Tony’s gaze ticks down to Steve’s lips, and for some reason that’s all it takes. 

Before Steve has time to second-guess himself, he leans over and covers Tony’s mouth with his. His move is quite sudden, a bit graceless, and he immediately worries he’s moved too fast or too hard, but Tony’s body seems to give in this perfect way that says at least one of them was expecting this. 

Tony’s lips part against his and Steve takes the invitation, sinking slowly deeper and pulling Tony in close. He finally gets to brush his fingers through Tony’s beautiful dark hair, his other hand sliding to the small of Tony’s back. Tony’s hands are on his face, his fingers rough but his touch gentle. The sensation of their kiss is both steadying and wild; he’s secure in Tony’s embrace, feeling safe like he’s never felt before, but the world is swirling around them like they’re the calm in the eye of the storm. 

Steve reluctantly pulls back long after the kiss, singular, has becomes kisses, plural, and they’re both out of breath and a bit dizzy. His pulse is racing and he feels a vague sense of shock, maybe better put as stunned disbelief. 

Tony chuckles, low and throaty, and traces a thumb over Steve’s bottom lip. 

“You should know, I’m holding back a _really_ corny joke about it being your birthday yet I’m the one who’s getting a gift.”

Steve knows his grin must look incredibly goofy, but he can’t stop it from spreading across his face. 

“That was you, holding it back?” Steve laughs. Tony trails his hand down the side of his neck, stopping at the collar of Steve’s pale blue Henley. 

“Yeah, aren’t you glad I kept it to myself?” 

“Very.” Tony moves in first for the kiss this time, still smiling as their lips brush. Tony’s teasing, promising more and then easing back until it’s more like they’re sharing breath than kissing. The playfulness gives way to something dangerously passionate when Steve finally slips his hands into the back pockets of Tony’s jeans and urges their bodies together. He doesn’t even care that they’re not alone, that anyone can see. This isn’t 1940, and this isn’t Bucky.

“I didn’t expect you to be so good at this,” Tony half-groans, breaking away to speak. 

“I didn’t know you were expecting anything,” Steve answers honestly, having thought until just minutes ago that any romantic feelings between them were wholly one-sided. Tony’s whole body stiffens slightly at Steve’s words, but before Steve can ask what he said wrong, Tony’s taking a step back, grabbing Steve’s hand, and leading the way back toward the bright, flashing neon lights of the amusement park. 

“Just don’t say anything yet.” Tony orders him as he leads the way to the Wonder Wheel, Tony circumventing the waiting line despite Steve’s protests. 

“Tony –”

“Zvvvt, zip it for one more second,” Tony holds up a finger to silence him, tugging him forward with his other hand. Steve lets himself be led into a red and yellow car, biting back his questions as Tony slams and locks the door. Despite there being room for six, their car is apparently full at two. Tony had slipped something to the operator to head an argument off at the pass, and Steve can only imagine the size of the bill. 

Steve waits until they slowly jostle forward before trying to speak again. 

A kiss cuts him off, Tony’s lips quite an effective silencer. As other people load into other cars, their own car ticks upward slowly. 

“Little confused here, Tony,” Steve finally manages to eke out, his hands coming to the front of Tony’s shoulders, the action causing Tony to freeze. Tony backs off slowly, licking his lips as he carefully seats himself on the opposite bench. 

“I mean, I’m okay with the ride but I don’t understand why…all this had to be right now.” He gestures around them, trying to encompass all of Tony’s strange behavior of the past few minutes with one motion. Tony relaxes a little then, leading Steve to wonder what Tony thought he’d meant.

“I was assuming I had a very short window before you either realized this was a horrible mistake and/or started freaking out, so I very immaturely brought you somewhere you could not escape.” He gestures around them. The Ferris Wheel car rocks a little in the wind as they reach the apex. From one hundred fifty feet in the air, everything on the ground seems small. The ocean stretches out into the darkness like it’s infinite. They’re a world away from everyone and everything. 

That Tony brought him here says a lot about how he feels, as whenever Tony’s uncertain or scared, he tends to shut people out, not shut people _in._

“Well, I don’t think this was a mistake and I’m not freaking out.” Steve replies, then looks down toward the ground, considering. “And I could escape from here without breaking a sweat." He looks back to Tony. "What else you got for me?”

He wishes he had a camera to capture the flummoxed look on Tony’s face. It’s amazing. 

“Well.” Tony stands, re-claiming the seat next to him and sliding his arm behind his shoulders. He has a triumphant smirk on his face as he leans in. “Then I guess I just got _this._ ” 

They’re still kissing at the top of the world when the fireworks begin, red white and blue sparks lighting the night sky. If the timing had happened with anyone else, Steve knows Tony would’ve rolled his eyes and called it a little too on the nose.

“Happy birthday,” is all Tony says before kissing him again.

The ride home on the back of Steve’s motorcycle is magical, and Tony Stark doesn’t believe in magic. The forty minute ride out to Coney Island had seemed interminable, annoyed as he was by Steve’s insistence on taking the bike. He’d been nervous and irritable, and already doubting the wisdom of his plans before they’d hit FDR Drive.

Time _flies_ on the way back, as it turns out that hanging onto the back of Steve’s ridiculous motorcycle is actually amazing now that he’s comfortable plastering himself to Steve’s broad back. He hadn’t realized how much energy he’d been exhausting trying to keep himself from letting his desperate want bleed through until he no longer had to hide it. 

Not having to curse himself for loving the feel of Steve’s taut abs under his touch frees up a lot of time to consider other things. 

Even Brooklyn looks beautiful tonight. All of the lights on the bridges twinkle prettily, crisscrossing the East River, perfectly engineered threads of brick and steel stitching all of New York City together. 

Manhattan takes his breath away as Steve weaves in and out of traffic, hugging the lower curve of the island. He almost asks Steve to edge west off the parkway so they can take a long, twisting drive north up the length of the island, through the crazy mess of streets below Houston – the graffiti-covered stalls all closed up for the night on Canal, the cozy restaurants open late in Little Italy, the last few dive bars left in the Bowery, all the tiny community gardens and twenty-four hour bodegas in Alphabet City…he suddenly wants to see this city, like he needs to know it’s all still there. 

But he just holds onto Steve more tightly, feeling the reassuring solidness of his body, and lets the wind whip by. 

Adrenaline is still ripping through his veins when they finally reach the mansion. Tony paws at Steve as they stumble upstairs from the underground garage; neither one of them seems willing to break contact for even a moment. Steve pins him against the wall in the kitchen the second they enter the room, swallowing his surprised grunt as they kiss. 

He’s working on Steve’s belt, and Steve should be stopping him, but he’s not. And the fact that he’s not makes Tony’s head swim. He whispers something vulgar, maybe an entirely unedited stream of thought about Steve’s body and what he wants to do to it, and Steve _moans_. The sound of it sends a shudder down his spine. 

Steve hitches Tony up like he weighs nothing and wordlessly urges him to wrap his legs securely around Steve’s slim waist. He’s hard, and he knows Steve can feel it pressing insistently against his stomach, and the only reason Tony stops himself from reaching down and pulling down his zipper is that he doesn’t want to push too far too fast. He wants this to end up with Steve naked in his bed, but they haven’t exactly paused to…discuss. 

“Tony…” Steve breathes, and Tony throws his head back against the wall, letting Steve’s lips sear a path down the arch of his neck. They’re going to be amazing together. If he’d known it would be this easy to fall into, he would’ve taken the risk sooner. 

But maybe sooner wouldn’t have been easy. It might have been a mess. Now is perfect, so he’ll take it. 

And then someone coughs. A third person. A not Steve or him person. 

Steve freezes, sharply pulls back. To his credit, he doesn’t drop Tony on his ass, keeping him up against the wall as they both turn their heads toward the noise. 

Steve moves his mouth but no sound comes out. The rosy flush of desire high on his cheeks fades, surprise draining the color from his face. 

“Barnes?” Tony stares at the man sitting at the island, and Bucky stares back. It’s a long moment before anyone acts, the room suddenly fraught with tension. 

Instinctively Tony lifts his hands from Steve’s shoulders, creating what space he can between them when they’re literally still wrapped around each other. He doesn’t want to let go, but he can feel embarrassment and confusion practically radiating from Steve. 

Steve carefully sets him down on the ground, disentangling their bodies. Tony meets his eyes briefly and finds apprehension there. It’s unsettling. 

“Bucky…what are you doing here?” Steve’s voice cracks and he moves back from Tony. He wipes his lips and adjusts the waistline of his jeans, trying to make his erection less noticeable. It doesn’t work. 

“I’ve been cleared for release, finally fit to live outside direct SHIELD supervision. I was told there was a place for me here whenever I was ready.” His gaze flicks toward Tony. Tony had said that weeks ago; he’d honestly figured Barnes wasn’t going to take him up on it by this point. He should stop trying to think he can figure out spies. 

Barnes stands up, taking a few steps toward them, letting his metal hand trail along the edge of the counter. 

“I…I thought I’d surprise you for your birthday. That was the plan, anyway.”

“Oh.” Steve stays where he is, intensely uncomfortable. He crosses his arms over his chest but just as quickly drops them back down to his sides, then crosses them again. 

“So…happy birthday.” Barnes inches closer. He extends his hand and Steve shakes it, and Tony feels like he’s witnessing the most awkward exchange of all time. He’s not even sure what exactly is making it so terrible because there are just too many reasons to choose from. Barnes’ look darts toward Tony again, and there’s jealousy there, suspicion, maybe disappointment. “Didn’t realize I’d be interrupting your date. I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t sound all that sorry, but seeing as how he and Steve making out like teenagers is a recent development, he supposes he can’t rationally blame Barnes for awaiting Steve’s return.

Steve runs a hand through his hair, unusually messy from both the wind and from Tony’s fingers, and then he glances at Tony. Any trace of desire, of arousal, is long gone and in its place is just sadness. 

“Thanks for waiting up, Buck, but I…it’s been a long day and I’m really tired. I think I’m going to go to bed.” 

“Yeah. I get it.” Barnes says quietly. Tony nods, and at least Steve manages to give him a small nod in return. 

Steve backs away from the both of them, and Tony wants to say something, anything, but he doesn’t want to make this worse. There are so many ways to fuck this up. If it’s not already ruined. 

He lets Steve go. He stands silently and waits until Steve is long out of sight before doing anything.

Tony crosses to the fridge and grabs a bottle of water, needing a task to keep him from colorfully expressing his frustration. 

“I’m sorry.” Barnes says again. “I didn’t know.”

“A heads up would’ve been nice.” Tony comments as he lets the fridge door slam. He cracks open the water, glaring at the other man as he takes a drink. “This _is_ my house.” 

He looks like he’s about to argue, and Tony honestly wishes he would, he wants the fight, but in the end the other man remains silent. 

Tony sets his bottle down and closes the space between them. 

“If you mess with his head…I will throw you out. I don’t care how fucked up you are, or how much history the two of you have. You’ll be gone. Are we clear?” 

Barnes nods.

“Are we clear?” Tony repeats.

“Yes. We’re clear.” Barnes replies, meeting Tony’s fiery stare with an icy glare of his own. 

“Good.” Tony grabs his water and storms out, leaving Steve’s old best friend, lover, what the hell ever, behind. 

He trudges up the stairs and stops just outside Steve’s bedroom. He puts his hand on the knob, turning it gently, but then second guesses himself and lets it spring back. The door stays closed. 

If they were still just friends, if tonight hadn’t happened, he’d go in. But things have changed, and entering Steve’s bedroom right now would mean something else. He’d be going in for different reasons, needing answers to far more difficult questions. 

Tony wavers, debating furiously in silence, and is about to knock when the sliver of warm light seeping from underneath the door abruptly goes out. 

Leaving Steve alone now seems like ceding something to Barnes, like he’s going to back off just because the other man’s now under the same roof. As far as he knows, Barnes is still with Natasha, and while Steve might need some space to wrap his head around the new situation, Tony doesn’t want Steve to think _he_ needs space too. 

He wants _less_ space. 

Tony takes the gamble and lets himself in. The click of the door closing behind him announces his presence in the quiet bedroom. 

“Who’s there?” Steve’s voice cuts through the darkness, the mattress shifting and creaking as he sits up. Tony can barely make out his shape in the shadows. 

“It’s me.” Tony whispers, toeing off his shoes as he makes his way across the room, letting them stay where they fall. 

He carefully climbs into bed beside Steve, pulling the covers up and settling in. He moves close but doesn’t touch. He doesn’t ask if this is okay because he can’t risk the answer. 

“Just sleep.” Tony murmurs, closing his eyes. After a long moment, one that seems to last forever, Steve turns over and fits his body against the curve of Tony’s. 

Tony supposes that’s answer enough.


	5. Autumn

Everywhere Tony goes, Steve’s attention follows. 

His distraction must be painfully obvious. Anyone giving him half a moment’s notice would have to conclude that he’s either enamored of or obsessed with Tony Stark, or both. 

However, it doesn’t seem to bother the man standing beside him. Steve can hear England in his accent and suspects he may be a fashion model, but he’s been unable to focus long enough to learn much more. 

Steve doesn’t mean to be rude but he can’t help it. He feels unmoored if he can’t find Tony in the crowd, cast away in a sea of unfamiliar faces smiling at him as if they’re all the best of friends. 

“Do you enjoy working as an Avenger?”

“Pardon?” Steve asks for what has to be the tenth time. He tries to give his conversation partner his undivided attention, finally turning to face him. They’re about the same height and while he has wavy, messy, dark hair like Bruce’s, there’s a slight pout to his lips that makes Steve think of Bucky. He’s not sure anymore if he finds that comforting or upsetting, as things with Bucky have only become more strained and awkward as months have gone by. 

“It must be thrilling to be part of a team of real live superheroes.” The man – Collin? Callum? Steve feels awful for not knowing, they’ve been ‘conversing’ for at least ten minutes now – asks, leaning in much closer to speak. His lips nearly brush Steve’s ear. He must think Steve’s hard of hearing, the number of times he’s been asked to repeat what he’s said. 

“It’s nice to be part of any team at all,” Steve manages to reply, pulling back a little when it becomes clear that the man doesn’t plan to leave his personal space. 

While Steve’s had to handle more than his fair share of publicity, his tour as Captain America didn’t prepare him for this kind of event. Kissing babies and snapping photos isn’t the same as endless small talk with folks angling for things from him he never fully comprehends. People may consider him a popular figure now, but that doesn’t undo a lifetime of being little more than wallpaper, ignored save when he was made fun of, brutalized, bullied. 

Captain America hasn’t changed that. Steve Rogers is still the person that no one wants to get to know. Almost no one. He seeks Tony out, needing to get eyes on him, and finds him sitting on one of those overstuffed white couches and in animated conversation with a pretty brunette he recognizes from magazine covers at the newsstand. Her perfectly manicured, elegant hand is resting on Tony’s forearm as they share a laugh. 

Steve nervously pulls at the collar of his crisp white shirt and adjusts his new suit, which is made of this dark navy blue material that has this strange, near sheen to it. It seems to shimmer under the string lights. The narrow tie matches, of course, and Steve’s never worn a suit tailored so well. Besides making him feel guilty, the exorbitant cost of his clothes also makes him scared to eat or drink a thing, terrified he’ll clumsily spill.

His military dress uniform should have been enough, he’d thought, but Pepper had said that wouldn’t fly with these kinds of people. Apparently the only thing high fashion wants from the military is the occasional borrowing of thematic khaki or camouflage. 

That he’s even here at Fashion Week at all is entirely Pepper’s doing. For the past few days, she’s been dragging Tony to red carpet events and parties, but tonight she’d suggested he tag along. Apparently the Diane von Furstenberg show and after party were not to be missed. The invitation had been phrased as a polite request but it was clear the only acceptable answer was yes. 

She had the suit delivered less than an hour later, the outfit obviously long prepared, and Steve finally understood what Tony meant by calling Pepper scarily efficient. 

What he didn’t understand was the invitation itself, as he’s been told regularly that his sense of fashion is deplorable. Tony explained that Pepper wanted to upgrade her arm candy – whatever that means – but Steve suspects it’s because Pepper picked up on Steve’s overall malaise whenever she showed up at the mansion, looking more beautiful than a movie star, and whisked Tony away for hours on end.

He’s glad that Pepper and Tony have remained amicable, as he knows that SI demands much of both their time. Steve’s not exactly jealous, but any hours Tony spends with her always pass by slower than they should. Perhaps Pepper thought that including him would help. 

However, being in the same space as Tony but feeling miles away makes him feel even lonelier. He looks up at the skeleton of the yet unfinished new Whitney Museum stretching high above the plaza and wishes he were almost anywhere else right now. 

Across the party, Tony is charming his way through the crowd like this is what he was born to do. 

“He always says he hates these things but I think he secretly loves them.”

Steve turns and finds his former conversation partner is long gone, evidently giving up; Pepper now stands beside him, a glass of champagne held out in offer. Steve gingerly takes the delicate flute, trying to handle the exchange with as much grace as possible. But Pepper isn’t watching him; she’s looking at Tony too, with a wry, knowing smile on her face. 

“He craves the attention,” Pepper says. “His addictive personality doesn’t start with work and end at alcohol.”

“Everyone does gravitate toward him.” Steve curses himself inwardly for not thinking of something smarter to say. His nerves fail him around Pepper, bringing back that old inexorable blush and stammer. She stands there, in her gorgeous, deep blue silk dress, her jewelry sparkling in the warm glow of the string lights, and she seems like just the right person to be on Tony’s arm, not him. “Tony draws people in.”

“Like a black hole.” Pepper drains her glass, trading it for a new one as a server passes by with a silver tray. Steve can’t tell if she’s upset or bored, but he doesn’t know what to do about either. He just knows he doesn’t agree with her, not about Tony being a black hole. 

His awkward silence must speak louder than words.

“I apologize, that sounded bitter. I’m really not.” Her voice turns lighter now, less dry, and Steve doesn’t know her well enough yet to know if her small smile is real or forced. “I always lean a little too heavy on the sarcasm where Tony’s concerned.”

“He does bring that out in folks.”

“You don’t say,” Pepper retorts and then laughs, pointing at herself. “See, there I go again. It’s my default setting.”

“It even happens to me sometimes, Ms. Potts, he wears on us all.” Steve glances at Tony again, knowing the fond smile that claims his face when he locks eyes on the man must give him away. “And I wouldn’t change him for the world.”

Pepper smiles, and he’s sure it’s real this time. She raises her glass, tips it toward him in a silent toast. Steve copies the movement and clinks his rim against hers before taking a sip. The champagne is dry and crisp and the bubbles tickle his nose. It occurs to him that he’s never actually had champagne before; Tony would be amused and appalled if he knew. 

“You’re a good man, Captain Rogers.” She moves in closer to him, bumps him congenially with her elbow. “Tony’s lucky to have you.”

“I don’t know about that,” Steve averts his eyes, feeling his face heat. “And we’re…we’re not together…exactly.”

He and Tony have been behaving much the same, except both of them know their outings are more than outings now. Occasionally they kiss, occasionally they do more than kiss, and occasionally they fall asleep in one another’s bedrooms, but neither of them has ever forced a conversation about defining what it is that they’re doing. 

His relationship with Bucky, whatever it had or hadn’t been, was conducted in private and never openly acknowledged between them – a barely-kept secret but a secret nonetheless. While Tony had been all right with what happened at Coney Island, when they weren’t under anyone’s watchful eyes, Steve’s not sure what to do now. So he’s been following Tony’s lead, afraid to do much else. 

“Tony is waiting for you to put a name to it.” Pepper states, as simply as if she were informing him of a shift in the weather. Steve’s gaze snaps up toward her, surprised. “I think…he’s attempting to be respectful of whatever you’re working through with James Barnes. He doesn’t want to force anything before you’re ready.”

“Oh.” 

“Sorry to be blunt. I know it’s not my business, but after so many years of taking care of him it’s hard to stop.” Pepper’s hand goes to her necklace, fingers gently running over the diamonds and sapphires. Steve wonders if it’s one of Tony’s more extravagant gifts. “It’s not like Tony to hold back; it means a lot that he is. I think if I don’t nudge you in the right direction you’ll both be waiting around for the other for quite awhile.”

“Thought maybe he wanted…us to be a private thing. I know, with the company-“

“Don’t you ever worry about the company,” Pepper kindly interjects, shaking her head. “Tony’s bounced back from _real_ scandal, dating you would be a _boon_. Besides. Tony hasn’t stopped talking about you all week. As much as I like you, Steve, he’s going to drive me crazy.” 

Steve blushes deeply, warmed by the thought of Tony talking about him that way. With Pepper, no less. 

“And since you haven’t taken your eyes off of him all night long, I’d venture to say you’re both on the same page, just in different editions.” 

Steve has to smile a little at the analogy.

“I’m a beat up hand me down paperback and he’s the e-book?” 

“Something like that.” Pepper tilts her glass at him again, and he obliges her by matching her, taking a sip of his own drink. “So…why don’t you stop having distracted, half-assed conversations with empty-headed models and go save Tony from his distracted, half-assed conversation with that empty-headed actress.”

Pepper gestures toward where Tony had been sitting earlier, but when the crowd parts, Steve finds that Tony’s no longer in his line of sight.

“She was actually quite intelligent.” 

“Compared to what?” Pepper replies without missing a beat, turning around to face Tony. Tony takes her champagne, polishes it off. 

“Well, let’s be fair, Pep – we can’t be down on everyone who’s not as brilliant as we are. Wouldn’t leave many people for us to talk to. Or sleep with.”

“Our standards have always been a bit different in that respect, Tony,” Pepper taunts, but then winks at Steve. “Though yours are improving.”

“Hands off, woman, get your own.” Tony squeezes in between her and Steve, waving his arms exaggeratedly to create space. 

“Hey-“ Steve starts, surprised at finding his hand now empty, Tony having lifted his glass. Tony grins, eyeing him as he downs the rest of Steve’s drink. He puts it back in Steve’s palm as soon as he polishes it off, and then turns back to Pepper.

“Speaking of getting your own, Pepper, I invited an old friend of yours to stop on by tonight, it looks like he just arrived.”

Tony points, and when Steve looks, he’s pleasantly surprised to find Phil trying to make his way over. The usually calm and collected agent looks uncommonly flustered and for once, Steve suspects it’s not because of his presence. 

“Phil?” Pepper asks Tony, immediately understanding where Tony is going with this. 

“Agent.” Tony corrects. He’d ceased this _Agent_ business for a time after Phil’s untimely demise, only to bring back the moniker once they all discovered that the reports of Phil’s death had been greatly exaggerated. 

Tony throws his arms out wide to welcome Phil, but just quickly drops them, letting out a disgruntled snort. He makes a broad gesture up and down and around as if he’s trying to encompass all of Phil’s body. 

“Agent, this is _Fashion_ Week – did you miss the memo?” 

Phil stops, and then tiredly looks down at his business attire. He straightens his navy and maroon striped tie and checks his cuffs, but otherwise finds nothing at fault. 

“You’re just fine, Phil, ignore Tony.” Pepper assures Phil, stepping slightly in front of Tony and extending her hand. Given that Pepper had explicitly taken care of what he would wear for this occasion and the kind of outfits he’s seen everyone else wearing, Steve suspects that Pepper is being kind. 

“That’s SOP where Stark is concerned.” Phil kisses Pepper’s hand in a very gentlemanly, respectable fashion and Tony rolls his eyes.

“I’m just saying, a little Armani never hurt anyone,” Tony scowls, flipping up the bottom of Phil’s tie with a flick of his finger.

“I once knew a diminutive Italian assassin codenamed Armani, so I would have to disagree with you on that point,” Phil replies with a completely straight face. Steve has _no idea_ if he’s kidding or not. 

“It’s good to see you again, Phil,” Steve says, shaking the man’s hand firmly. Phil’s eyes tick upward nervously, giving Steve one of those awkward smiles that only he can cause. As ever, it leaves Steve feeling equal parts amused and uncomfortable. 

“It’s _Agent._ ” Tony corrects stubbornly. 

“Good to see you too, Captain. You look very dapper.” 

“Not the one you should be complimenting,” Tony stage whispers; Steve elbows him. Phil stiffens a bit, his jaw tightening. He looks like a stern schoolteacher silently praying for the patience to deal with an unruly child. Steve’s sure that addressing Pepper’s appearance was already Phil’s next planned move; he hardly needed Tony’s prompting to be polite. 

“Pepper, you are absolutely breathtaking this evening.” Phil offers her his arm, very obviously turning away from Tony. “Would you care to join me for a drink?” 

“That would be lovely.” Pepper shoots a departing look over her shoulder, one that tells Tony she knows exactly what he’s up to and that she’ll play along for now, but he’ll surely pay for it later. 

Tony remains quiet for a long moment, eyes narrowing ever so slightly as he follows Pepper and Phil weaving their way through the crowd. 

“It’s not weird to set up your ex on a date, is it?” Tony asks, twisting at the waist to look at Steve. 

“I’m hardly the person to ask.”

“But you have an opinion, you always do.” Tony turns fully to face him, stepping in closer so they can converse without straining to be heard over the din. 

“No…not exactly.” Tony makes a _go on_ gesture. “Just thought that Happy was a little sweet on her, is all.”

Tony’s eyebrows shoot up, his surprise genuine.

“No shit, Happy? Really?”

“Yeah. He thinks Pepper’s swell.” After many years spent on the sidelines himself, Steve’s well acquainted with the look of someone pining. Happy has had that look as long as Steve’s known him. 

“Huh. Well, Pepper sure is _swell_ ,” Tony smirks over the old-fashioned word. “So it’s not all _that_ surprising. I suppose this is where you should tell me that if I were less self-absorbed, I’d have noticed Happy mooning over my ex?”

“Pepper and Phil make a great deal of sense, Tony.” They really do, now that he thinks about it. Except…Phil’s line of work is only slightly less dangerous than Tony’s, and that doesn’t actually make sense where Pepper is concerned. Everyone thought Tony died last year – Phil actually _did_ , for a while. Steve decides not to quibble over the logic with Tony. “It was incredibly sweet of you to play matchmaker.”

“Oh lord, don’t say things like that, someone might hear you.” Tony warns him, sighing overdramatically. “I have a reputation to protect.”

“Speaking of reputations…” Steve starts, his and Pepper’s conversation still at the forefront of his mind. Tony looks at him expectantly.

“Yes?”

“How much would it bother you if I…” Steve trails off, opting instead to slowly reach for Tony’s hand, giving him ample time to pull away if he wants to. Instead, a smile spreads over Tony’s face and he folds his fingers comfortably between Steve’s. 

“Depends.” Tony replies, a teasing lilt in his voice. 

“On what?”

“How much would it bother _you_ if I…” Tony leans in, brushes a kiss against Steve’s lips. It’s tentative, careful to give Steve time to back away. Steve quickly lets him know that’s not needed, tilting his head and pushing the kiss deeper. 

Even with his eyes closed, Steve’s vaguely aware of a few telltale flashes of bright white light that mean photos are being snapped, but if Tony doesn’t care, he doesn’t either. 

“Maybe everyone will stop hitting on you now.” Tony pulls back just enough to speak. He sounds like he’s aiming for a joke but not entirely sure he’s not serious. 

“Hmm?” Steve slowly opens his eyes; the effects of the kiss leaving him slow to catch up with Tony’s meaning. 

“I’ve spent the whole night trying desperately hard to be a grown-up.” Tony rocks a little on his heels, antsy as he explains himself. “One more twenty year old model or Hollywood ingénue undressing you with their eyes and I might have lost the battle. I was about to grab some starlet’s bright red lipstick and write _MINE_ across your chest.” 

Tony splays his hands across exactly where he would’ve written the word. 

“I think I would’ve been okay with that.” 

“Really?” Tony arches one eyebrow, a mischievous glint in his dark brown eyes. He never looks as handsome as he does when he’s happy and up to no good. “Well. How about we get on outta here and I figure out other ways to stake my claim?”

“Who could deny a romantic offer like that?” 

Tony takes his hand again and Steve’s pretty sure that at this moment, he’d follow Tony anywhere.

The television is on, the sound a bit too loud as always. Steve has never lived alone, which means that while he treasures quiet, he’s used to noise. Sometimes that means music – he’s become a big Dylan fan, of all things – but more often than not it means TV. Tony thinks Steve just likes hearing people talk.

Probably explains why he went for Tony. 

On screen, Nathan Fillion is glibly tossing off another clever quip, and if Steve were still awake, Tony knows it would have made him smile. Tony’s never really been much for TV, but Steve’s taken to _Castle_ in a pretty endearing way. He says it reminds him of witty screwball comedies like _His Girl Friday_ or _The Awful Truth_ and he speaks of the role reversals – The woman is the kickass police detective! The man’s her sidekick! – with such excitement that Tony sometimes needs to remind him these characters aren’t real. 

Beckett reminds him of Peggy, and since Steve had announced this with a proud smile rather than a sad look of regret, Tony figures the television show must be doing him some good. Tony even deigned to sit down and watch it with him once or twice as Steve marathoned his way through five seasons. Steve really is picking up some quite modern habits, binge-watching first among them. 

Now, however, Tony picks up the remote from the coffee table and switches the program off. Steve stirs, the cessation of background noise enough to disturb his light slumber. A ridiculous feeling of warmth spreads throughout Tony’s chest as he looks down at Steve, stretched out on the couch with a tattered copy of some Jonathan Lethem book open and resting on his stomach. Fiorello is curled up on Steve’s legs, a purring ball of gray fur perfectly content to use Steve as his pillow. The cat has the right idea. 

Steve really is beautiful, for lack of a less corny word. He’s wearing dark, broken in jeans and one of those faded grey t-shirts that accentuate his bulging muscles, but it’s the bare feet and slightly mussed hair that do Tony in. He looks _comfortable_ , and the thought that Steve’s so at home here leaves Tony slightly breathless with wonder.

 _He’s here, and he’s mine._ Tony can’t quite believe it and doesn’t know if he ever will. That might be for the best, because the last thing he wants is to take Steve for granted the way he has others in the past. 

Steve doesn’t fully wake, slipping back asleep with a deep exhale, so Tony takes a seat at the far end of the couch, lifting up Steve’s feet and placing them in his lap. Fiorello lets out a disgruntled yowl and scampers away in displeasure. Tony curves a hand gently around Steve’s ankle, thumb rubbing small circles against his skin. 

Steve’s eyes open at that, long dark lashes fluttering, and Tony smiles as Steve’s gaze focuses immediately on him. 

“Hey, Tony,” Steve greets him in a soft and low mumble. Tony lets his hand slip higher, fingers brushing Steve’s calf underneath the loose leg of his jeans. The muscles shift beneath his touch, Steve stretching a little. 

“Don’t think I’ve ever seen you nap, Cap. Busy day?”

“Worked the Food Bank all day up in the Bronx with Sam… I stopped off on the way home and got some of the rugelach from Lee Lee’s that you like. It’s…” Steve yawns. “It’s in my bedroom, though, so Clint doesn’t eat it all.”

“Steven Grant Rogers not willing to share? I never thought I’d see the day.” 

“I’m protective of your baked goods, I will not apologize.” 

Steve picks up the book that’s splayed over his stomach and puts it aside on the coffee table, not bothering to mark his page. Then he reaches and runs a hand up Tony’s arm, sitting up just a little in order to get the leverage to pull Tony forward. Tony goes easily, settling himself on top of Steve. For someone who is basically a solid wall of muscle, Steve’s body is surprisingly comfortable underneath his. 

Tony folds his hands on Steve’s chest and rests his chin on them, gazing at Steve’s face with blatant admiration. 

“I hope you realize that now that I’m here, on top of you, on this couch, I don’t plan on moving for quite awhile.”

“That’s fine.” Steve shrugs, corner of his mouth ticking upward. 

“And we should probably make out. I think the law requires that two attractive people in this position do so.”

“Don’t think I know that one.”

“It’s there, in the penal code, somewhere. I could look it up, but I’m too busy thinking about the various things we could get up to like this.” Tony wriggles suggestively but only succeeds in making Steve laugh and squirm underneath him. 

“I know one thing we could get up to.” Steve runs a hand through Tony’s hair, and it feels more amazing than it has any right to. Even so, Tony’s not fool enough to hope that the next thing out of Steve’s mouth will be a lewd suggestion. 

“I’m not napping, old man,” Tony cuts him off. He pushes up, adjusting so he’s straddling Steve’s waist. He presses the flats of his palms against Steve’s firm pecs, the soft, thin fabric of his t-shirt a barely there barrier between Tony and what he wants. 

Steve sighs, looking up at Tony with patient concern. His hands smooth up Tony’s thighs before coming to rest at his waist, holding him there. 

“I doubt you’ve been getting enough sleep, you never do.”

“You wouldn’t have to doubt, you’d _know_ , if we slept in the same bed.” Even though he’s not sure about sharing a bedroom with Steve just yet, Tony always finds himself asking anyway. Whenever the thought of falling asleep and waking up next to Steve crosses his mind, it always seems like a _great_ idea. It fills him with a kind of _want_ that’s beyond sexual, something _more_.

Not that it’s not highly sexual too. Cause it is. 

Instead of waiting for Steve to reply, Tony allows his desire to win out. He dips down and takes Steve’s mouth, eager and insistent. Steve gives himself over to it with no protest. He lets Tony’s tongue slide along his, a small whimper escaping that tells Tony that Steve’s more than willing. 

Steve’s body seems to radiate heat when they’re close like this; his skin is warm to the touch and Tony wants to get his greedy hands on more of it. He rucks up Steve’s tee, sliding his palms over the ridges of Steve’s carved muscles. The sensation makes Tony shiver, like the first time he ran his hands over the curve of a classic car or held the Iron Man helmet in his hands. 

He doesn’t want Steve solely for his body, but still… _his body._ Damn. 

Tony can’t lie. He’s going to enjoy the hell out of learning every inch of it, figuring out what makes Steve moan, what makes him beg, what makes him come.

It’s going to be amazing.

Steve sits up to let Tony tug his shirt over his head, and Tony pushes him back down into the cushions as soon as the fabric hits the ground. His fingers find Steve’s nipples and his lips seek out that spot on Steve’s neck that makes him arch and sigh. 

It takes him far too long to realize that the tugging feeling at the back of his neck is Steve trying to get him to stop kissing for long enough to get rid of his ratty NIN t-shirt. One of these days he swears he’s going to get Steve so riled up he’ll tear his clothes off – that’s never happened to him before and he has the feeling Steve could actually do it, rend fabric in two like it’s tissue paper between his hands. 

For now, he obliges Steve’s silent request the old-fashioned way, breaking their rhythm to slip out of the tee as quickly as possible. Steve’s hands travel the expanse of his bare back, up and then back down, fingers dipping into his back jeans pockets rather promisingly. 

Tony ruts against Steve shamelessly, earning him a small, surprised gasp. It shouldn’t be so hot that Steve still gets shocked when he feels Tony’s arousal, like he can’t believe he’s the one who can cause that reaction. 

Someday, Tony will pleasure Steve in front of a mirror – double-wide, full length, maybe three-way – just to make Steve watch how devastatingly gorgeous his body is, how immaculate. He’ll show him that there’s more to his physical perfection than duty and obligation; that there are things meant for only Steve’s personal benefit. 

He honestly does wonder if Steve really ever got to enjoy this on any other terms than fulfilling his dreams of patriotic service to his country. He wonders if Steve and Bucky ever mapped out Steve’s body like new terrain, plotting tactical moves across the landscape of his skin. Tony wants to know every inch of him and he can’t possibly imagine Barnes ever passed up the chance to do the same. 

“We never...after the serum.” Steve replies to the question Tony hadn’t realized he’d asked aloud. Tony sucks in a sharp breath and pulls back, wondering what other things he might’ve said without thinking. “He thought I was better off pursuing Peggy. Couldn’t convince him otherwise.”

“No?” Tony keeps his hands moving, fingers feathering along the waistline of Steve’s jeans. “I can’t imagine saying no to you.”

“I think he liked me better small.” Steve murmurs with a weak smile. He reaches down and stills Tony’s hands and Tony curses himself for bringing this up. His self-sabotage skills are magnificent, truly. He closes his eyes and braces for Steve to sit up, shove him off his lap. “I think he liked me better weak.”

“You’ve never been weak.” Tony snaps his gaze up to Steve’s face. Steve’s staring back at him, and Tony doesn’t find sadness or regret there. Just acceptance. “And he’s a fool.” 

Tony’s kiss stops Steve from protesting; if he’s about to defend Bucky’s honor, Tony doesn’t want to hear it. He has things of his own he needs to say. 

“I can sometimes be an idiot,” Tony mumbles between kisses, lips laying a claim each time they connect with a new expanse of Steve’s warm skin. “And I’m often an ass.” Steve laughs, broken and breathless, as Tony moves his mouth down the defined center line of his chest and abs, tongue tracing a trail south. Steve’s hand is in his hair, fingers threading loosely through the strands. “But I’ve never been a fool.”

He thumbs open the button of Steve’s jeans. Steve sucks in a sharp breath, flat stomach contracting beneath Tony’s mouth. Tony hesitates, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have jumped the gun on declaring himself never a fool, and peers up the length of Steve’s body to look at his face. 

“Tony…” 

Steve’s blue eyes are blown black with arousal and his usually pale lips are plush pink and kiss-swollen. His cheeks are rosy and there’s a delicate sheen of sweat beading over his broad chest. If Tony breathes deep he swears he can smell the heady scent of sex, and his fingers twitch as they hover over Steve’s zipper. 

“Do you want me to stop?” The metal teeth click as Tony slowly tugs the slide of the zipper down. 

“No.” Steve shakes his head. “Please don’t stop.”

The zipper fully opened, the flaps of Steve’s jeans fall open in a vee that perfectly frames his impressive erection, straining against the thin cotton of his white boxer-briefs. Tony cups his hand over the bulge, his own cock pulsing with excitement as he feels Steve’s length throb under his palm. 

“Fuck, Steve…” Tony whispers under his breath, awed. He slowly massages up and down a few times, relishing the moment, making sure he’ll always remember how this feels. All it takes is one delicious whimper pushing from Steve’s throat and Tony’s eagerly shoving his hand through the keyhole fly to touch bare skin.

Steve’s lips part in a silent moan, legs spreading and hips arching as Tony wraps fingers around his cock. His length swells further in Tony’s loose grasp and it gives Tony a powerful, heady feeling that nearly makes him dizzy. 

Steve pulls him down as much as Tony pushes in, surging toward one another fast and roughly enough to make the couch creak. 

“We should…” Steve doesn’t finish his thought, distracted by Tony stroking him firmly.

“Should what…?”

“This is rather…” Steve’s own hand encircles Tony’s wrist, stilling his movement.

“Fast?” Tony supplies quickly, perhaps betraying his own apprehension. He’d honestly been expecting Steve to put on the brakes long before this, so he steels himself to stop, drawing on his shallow well of self-control. 

“Public.” Steve corrects, fixing his underwear to cover his erection. “Rather not have someone walk in on us.”

Tony pretends this actually needs to be considered and weighed. Debauching Steve in the common room where anyone can see does have a certain appeal, but he’s not about to make that case to Steve. Besides, he’d like to actually complete said debauching before anyone finds out and feels the need to lecture him about besmirching a national icon. He much prefers sitting through tirades about things he’s actually done, not things he possibly might do in the future. 

So all in all, keeping this about him and Steve and not _Tony Stark_ and _Captain America_ is a much better plan. 

“Well, I _suppose_ …” Tony sighs melodramatically. He sits back on his heels, letting his hands linger as long as possible before reluctantly climbing off the couch. His knees feel tight and achy when he stands. He stretches a little, rolling his shoulders. “I mean, we _do_ have our choice of bedrooms between the two of us, I guess we can make use of _at least_ one of them.”

“At least.” Steve repeats, rising as well but with far more grace. He bends to pick up their discarded clothes from the floor, broad back and sculpted backside to Tony. When he straightens back up and offers Tony his shirt, Tony very nearly groans at the picture Steve makes, half naked and hard, open jeans barely clinging to his slim hips, the warm light from the table lamps casting soft shadows along the sharply muscled planes of his body. 

Tony bites his lip, teeth digging in hard, in order to stop something either desperately needy or gushingly romantic from spilling out.

Steve starts to tidy up, straightening the couch cushions and gathering his sketchpad and book and DVDs from the coffee table, and Tony’s tidal wave of want is tempered by frustration and amusement.

“You’re ridiculous and adorable.” He grabs the things from Steve and tosses them back down on the table, not caring that the hardcover tumbles to the floor with a thud. “Leave it.”

“I shouldn’t-“

“It’ll keep ‘til morning.” His hands go to Steve’s hips and guide him backward toward the hallway, toward the stairs. 

“But-“

“Or the afternoon.” Tony kisses Steve’s frown, feels it turn into a smile against his lips. “Or tomorrow night.”

“Exactly how long do you plan on keeping me in bed?”

Tony shrugs. Forever sounds good, but at this point it’s unwise to say.

“How about as long as you’ll stay.”

“You know, I had a reservation at Le Cirque and tickets to _Once_ for us tonight, and I normally don’t _do_ Broadway.” Tony’s up to his elbows in pumpkin guts, grimacing and scooping out another handful. He wrinkles his nose as he flicks a handful of the stringy pulp onto the newspaper-covered countertop. “If I had known we were doing _this_ , I would’ve appreciated a heads up so I could’ve at least worked up a schematic, some kind of proper design.”

Steve can see it now, Tony building a small bot to clean out the inside of the pumpkin and then using the holo to project an intricate design onto the curved surface, maybe using lasers to precisely carve out an elaborate image.

“This part is half the fun,” Steve replies, pausing in the cut he’s making. If Tony stopped complaining long enough to work, he’d be long done with the cleaning and onto the carving already. 

“I was even going to take you to Serendipity for frozen hot chocolate afterward, so you could live that movie you inexplicably adore.”

“Hey. I love that movie.” Natasha pipes up, brandishing the tiny, flimsy carving blade at Tony. She manages to make it seem incredibly threatening. 

“That’s right, you like your Cusack. For someone who likes very little, Nat, your penchant for certain celebrities bewilders me.”

It doesn’t bewilder Steve, as he knows American movies were one of the things barred from Natasha in her difficult childhood. Afraid of Western indoctrination, the Red Room had explicitly prohibited almost all forms of imported entertainment; watching American movies feels like some kind of freedom to Nat, rebellious daring fun she’d never even attempted as a teen. 

80s movies, in particular, seem to be a favorite. The fact that Steve knows what 80s movies are now - _Indiana Jones_ , John Hughes and the Brat Pack, _Back to the Future_ , Patrick Swayze and Tom Cruise, _Lethal Weapon_ and _Beverly Hills Cop_ \- makes him inordinately proud. A rudimentary understanding of popular culture probably shouldn’t please him so much, but it does. 

Tony has stepped away from his pumpkin and rounded in on Steve, messy hands extended. Steve sets down his knife and backs away from Tony’s attempt to wipe them down the front of his shirt. He doesn’t move fast enough, probably because he doesn’t _really_ care, and Tony ends up using his shirtsleeve as a rag. 

“Thanks, Tony, that’s really nice,” Steve snorts, tilting his head and shrugging his shoulder to get a look at the damage. The pale blue fabric of his thin sweater is streaked with wet, sticky orange, Tony’s fingers leaving a smudgy mess behind. 

“I believe Tony has concocted a clever and devious ploy to necessitate the removal of your fine shirt, Captain.” Thor observes with a knowing twinkle in his blue eyes; he seems rather proud of himself for catching on.

“It wasn’t that devious.” Tony states, going to the sink to clean his hands the right way. 

“And it really wasn’t all that clever.” Clint adds. Tony pauses in rinsing and flicks water at the back of Clint’s head. 

“Birdbrain, you wouldn’t know clever if it bit you in the ass-“

“Now that’s a highly original insult,” Clint compliments sarcastically.

“Between you and Wilson, I’m running out of avian-related ammo. If you want original insults, get a more original name.”

“Thor, what are you carving into your pumpkin?” Steve asks loudly, stamping out Clint and Tony’s friendly argument before it stops being friendly. 

“Alas, my attempt to replicate my Lady Jane’s likeness has not met with great success.” Thor turns around his jack o’ lantern to reveal three jagged holes that Steve divines were supposed to be Jane’s eyes and her mouth. “Loki always displayed greater artistic gifts than I. My talents sadly do not extend thusly.”

Beside Thor, Sam struggles valiantly to keep a straight face and Steve widens his eyes at his friend in warning, telling him to keep it together. 

“What do you think, Dr. Banner?” Thor inquires as Bruce enters the room, having decamped upstairs earlier when he discovered that crafting of any kind made the Other Guy frustrated and antsy. 

“Quite unique.” Bruce says diplomatically, taking a seat on a stool beside Thor and opening up the academic journal he’d brought down with him. He shoots a confused look at Tony, who mouths back _It’s supposed to be Jane._ If anything, Bruce just grows more confused by this information. 

“It’s very…Cubist.” Steve searches for the right spin, wanting Thor to be proud of his efforts. “Picasso would love it.”

“Picasso’s a famous artist,” Sam chips in before Thor can ask. Thor nods, stroking his beard as he mulls over this new information. 

“I am not familiar with this Picasso fellow, some time in the near future you must avail me of his exploits.”

“I have a couple somewhere, I’ll dig ‘em out.” Tony says off-handedly and Steve stops what he’s doing, unable to keep from staring at Tony in dismay. “ _What_?” Tony asks, though he knows full well what. “We’ll hang them in your room after they’re out of storage, all right?”

“That’s hardly necessary, Tony.”

“We’ll put them up next to that nude portrait you’re doing of me.” Tony actually slaps his butt as he walks by. Steve freezes and feels his face heat, both because of the gesture and Tony’s words.

“I haven’t done a nude portrait of Tony,” He manages to say without sounding ridiculously defensive, looking around the room at everyone and hoping they believe him. “I really _haven’t_.”

“Sure you haven’t.” Sam’s clearly not buying it, and both Clint and Natasha smirk to themselves. Bruce’s attention is too obviously focused on his work, refusing to take part in speculation. 

“Eh, he actually hasn’t, but it’s only a matter of time.” Tony hops up on the counter next to Steve’s pumpkin, swinging his legs back and forth, heels thumping the lower cabinets. He has a bag of popcorn that he must have grabbed from the cupboard, and he pops three pieces into his mouth before grinning at Steve. “I’ll wear you down, you know it’s pointless to resist.”

“I should like to commission a portrait from you as well, dear Steven. My Lady Jane has asked for a likeness to keep in her chambers, to remember me during our long and sad times apart.”

“Sure, Thor.” Steve’s more than happy to do so, even if Thor does have a hard time sitting still. 

“I shall now go contact her using the Skype, for I think she would like to see what I have created as an act of devotion.” Thor cradles his pumpkin rather carelessly under one arm, like he doesn’t understand how easily he could crush it, and wanders off toward the library to use the computer. 

“Before doing that portrait, you should clarify that it’s a ‘clothes-on’ kinda likeness, Cap. I might get jealous if you’re staring for hours at a naked Thor.” Tony leans in, angling in front of him to get a look at what Steve’s carving. Steve turns the pumpkin a little so Tony can get a better view.

“I highly approve of this.” Tony runs a finger over one of the lines, imagining how it will look all lit up against the darkness. Steve likes the pleased expression on Tony’s face, not a hint of insincerity there. 

The back door of the kitchen opens, the cool breeze blowing through and demanding everyone’s attention. Steve feels Tony tense up beside him, stopping mid-action with more popcorn halfway toward his mouth. The entire room is conspicuously quiet for a beat too long. 

“Barnes, where the hell you wandering in from?” Clint asks, smashing the silence. Bucky steps all the way inside, shaking a few dead leaves from the bottom of his boots before walking further. He’s carrying a large paper bag that seems heavy and is near overflowing.

He looks around slowly, almost like he’s sizing everyone up and gauging the overall mood. Steve hates how wary Bucky remains, identifying threats and exit routes in every room he enters. He hates that he can’t do anything to make it better, because he and Bucky still feel all jumbled and strange and awkward in a way Steve never dreamed possible. It’s only gotten worse since he’d officially began dating Tony, like Bucky has even less of an idea how to be around him now. 

“I had to go pick something up.” Bucky comes to his side, surprisingly close, and sets the bag down on the counter with a grunt. A package of Fifth Avenue bars tumbles loose. Tony tosses it back into the bag. 

“I appreciate the effort, Barnes, but Pepper’s stocked us up for more trick-or-treaters than can possibly exist in Manhattan.” Tony hadn’t wanted to participate, positing that opening the grounds to the public would be a disaster waiting to happen, but Coulson had arranged tight security and Pepper thought it would be excellent PR. 

Steve thinks it will be fun. His ma used to mention something vaguely like trick or treating from back home in Ireland, but it wasn’t really a neighborhood tradition when he was a child in Brooklyn. He suspects it’s not all that popular here in Manhattan now, with towering apartment buildings full of complete strangers and tightly closed doors, but an Avengers Halloween event will probably draw a crowd. 

“This isn’t for that,” Bucky replies, nudging the bag toward Steve. “I just…picked up some old favorites.”

Steve glances into the sack and can’t help but smile.

“Valomilk Dips? Primrose candies?” Steve sets down his carving tools and rifles through the plastic bags and small boxes of candy. They’re all familiar little pieces of his and Bucky’s shared past. Bucky used to bring him candy all the time when he’d be laid up in bed, and even though Steve’s sure some of it was shoplifted, he’d never had the heart to call Bucky out for it. “Red Hots and Peanut chews? Buck, where’d you find all this?”

“Some of it’s still around, easy to find. Special ordered the rest.” Bucky smiles back at him and for once it hardly seems a strain. His gaze ticks downward from Steve’s face toward the face of the jack o’ lantern, and his grin tightens slightly. “Iron Man, huh…Looks good.”

“He really has captured my magnificent essence,” Tony states, grandiose and lovably arrogant. Tony sets a hand on his arm, casually but clearly possessive, and just as Steve thinks that the tension may escalate, Tony lets go and steps back. Trying to keep things on an even keel, Steve doesn’t comment on his design or Tony’s thoughts about it. Instead he picks up the small knife and sets back to the finishing touches on Iron Man’s face, not saying a word. 

“We got a pumpkin for you over there, Barnes, you better get crackin’.” Tony points across the room, waving a finger at the extra pumpkin sitting on the counter. Steve hadn’t realized it was intended for Bucky, and his heart warms at Tony making the gesture. 

“You want me to do one?” Bucky’s taken aback as well, but Steve thinks the surprise is pleasant. Bucky still looks at Tony like he’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.

“You can _try_ , I mean it can’t possibly look any worse than Clint’s.” 

“Yo, Stark.” Clint says sharply and when Tony looks, he flips him the middle finger. Tony’s nonplussed.

“And don’t go thinking the star on mine is for you, Barnes. It’s Cap’s shield, not that crappy emblem on your lame-ass robot arm. Your lame-ass robot arm which, by the way, would be ten times more awesome if you let me at it.”

“Maybe sometime,” Bucky says, drawing his arms in around himself a bit protectively. Steve looks at Natasha, expecting her to jump in the conversation anytime now, but finds her intently focused on carving, brows knit in consternation. 

“Everything I touch I make better,” Tony promises. “Well. Almost everything. Some things are perfect already.” He snakes a hand up Steve’s arm, brushes fingers against his neck. 

“Too much information,” Sam coughs out.

“Hey, you took that one dirty, not me. Get your filthy mind out of the gutter.” 

“You want to complain about too much information – my bedroom’s next to Tony’s. Imagine what I have to put up with.” Clint whines at Sam and Steve’s face colors, blushing furiously. He didn’t know he and Tony could be _heard_ ; he thought they were being discreet.

“Oh geez.” The knife slips, cutting into what’s supposed to be Iron Man’s chest plate. He glances at Tony, expecting to find his boyfriend chuckling over his embarrassment, but Tony doesn’t look all that amused. Tony gives Bucky a strange, almost guilty sideways look, but Bucky’s attention is carefully trained on the floor. Steve can’t see his expression and for that he’s glad. He doesn’t really want to know what Bucky thinks about him and Tony; it’s a conversation that could only be awkward and unproductive. 

“My room is soundproofed, Barton. Don’t be a dipshit. You’re not embarrassing me – you’re embarrassing Steve.” Tony walks across the room like he’s merely going to grab the pumpkin for Bucky but it’s obvious he really does so in order to whack Clint upside the head. He tempers his real annoyance with a joke, taking the edge off the honest warning. “Embarrassing Captain America makes the angels cry.” 

Clint grunts at Tony, annoyed by the slap, but he softens and offers Steve an apologetic smile. 

“You might want to check that soundproofing,” Clint then mutters to Tony out of the corner of his mouth, clearly forgetting Steve’s sense of hearing is sharp. Tony, already on his way back to Steve’s side, hesitates slightly in his next step. He nods quickly to acknowledge Clint’s advice and keeps on going.

“The tower will be finished soon. We’ll all have our own floors.” Tony says, more to Steve than to everyone else as he puts Bucky’s pumpkin beside Steve’s on the counter. “Plenty of space, we won’t all be right on top of each other.”

“Oh, I dunno, I think I’ll miss the sound of Thor singing in the shower.” Bruce comments idly, slowly looking up from his reading for a moment and adjusting his glasses. 

“And Clint snoring like a lawnmower,” Natasha adds.

“And Sam’s birds chirping at five in the morning,” Clint says. 

“He’s not supposed to have those birds.” Sam cares nothing for Tony’s rule, and Tony keeps threatening to let Fiorello loose in their cage. 

“I love that you think we’re all right on top of each other in this huge ass house,” Sam laughs, disbelieving but good-natured. “I grew up in a place smaller than this kitchen with my aunt, brother and sister and six cousins.”

Clint’s not impressed. 

“Try growing up in the _circus_. I had a bunk with a straw mattress, and a duffel bag. On a _train_. I shared a rickety old drafty car with the bearded lady and the tumbling dwarves.”

“Remember when the roof caved in at St. John’s?” 

There’s a beat of silence and surprise as everyone realizes Bucky’s joined in, causing a hiccup in the rhythm of the conversation, but Steve quickly recovers.

“Course I do. We all had to sleep two or three to a bed in the other dormitory until it was fixed.”

“We were actually lucky compared to the other boys – at least we were used to sharing a bunk more often than not.” 

“Also helped that I was half the size of everyone else. I see now why you were friends with me, Buck.” The teasing comes naturally and it’s that very ease that makes Steve suddenly tentative and uncomfortable. It’s so natural to slip back into but that’s not who he and Bucky are anymore.

“Being your friend has always been the best move I ever made.”

Steve’s gaze snaps toward Bucky and he finds his friend staring at him earnestly, blue eyes studying him. Bucky abandons sarcasm and embraces sincerity even less than Tony, so Steve’s caught well off-guard. 

“Where are the candles, Stark?” Natasha asks suddenly, loudly. 

“What?” Tony’s voice rings with confusion.

“The candles. For the jack o’ lanterns. Where are they?”

“They’re around somewhere, surely Pepper ordered some. JARVIS, d’ya know where Pep put the candles?”

“I believe there are boxes of tea lights stored in the supply closet of your workshop, sir.”

“They’re in the workshop,” Tony tells Natasha, as if she hadn’t heard JARVIS announce the same thing. 

“We should go get them if we’re going to set these pumpkins out tonight.”

“Right now?” 

“Yes right now.” 

Natasha’s jaw ticks, her stare challenging Tony to ask another question. She moves toward the door to the basement stairs, clearly assuming Tony will follow her.

“Clearly candle retrieval is a two person operation.” Tony mutters to himself unhappily. His gaze moves from Steve to Bucky, obviously cottoned on to what Natasha’s doing.

“Well. I can’t possibly read any more about conic-section interference fringes.” Bruce closes the journal and takes off his glasses, rubbing the bridge of his nose.

“What conic what?” Sam’s face screws up in puzzlement. 

“Why would you read about that ever?” Clint is more dismayed than puzzled. “Whatever it is, it sounds awful.”

“It’s actually very interesting but I think I’m wiped out, gonna head for bed.” He gathers his things, pausing to give both Clint and Sam a weighted look clearly meant to telegraph _something_. He then gives Steve a small wave and leaves.

Clint and Sam turn away from Bruce’s departing figure, glancing at each other and then at Steve and Bucky. 

“We live with a bunch of weirdos, I don’t know-“ Clint starts. Sam makes a small hissing noise and a jerking movement. By the way Clint jolts, it’s clear that Sam has landed a sharp kick somewhere just out of Steve’s line of sight. “What the-?”

“Clint and I are gonna go out on the porch, tell Tony and Natasha to meet us out there with the candles.”

“I’m not done, I –” Sam nods his head toward the exit exaggeratedly, eyes widening at Clint. “Oh. Yeah. Right, tell ‘em we’re out there.”

“That was subtle.” Bucky comments as soon as he and Steve are alone. Steve smiles nervously, feeling put on the spot by all his friends abandoning him to this moment. 

“I think they mean well.” 

“They’re all very nice folks. But they ain’t you.” 

“Bucky, I…”

“No, let me get this out.” Bucky holds up his hand, metal glinting in the light. “I’ve been needing to say this for ages and since Nat’s clearly decided now’s the time…”

“You don’t have to say anything you don’t want to.” Steve assures him, though he suspects he’s as afraid of hearing what Bucky has to say as much as Bucky might be afraid of saying it. 

“I want to. I want to say I’m sorry.”

“Sorry for what?” His heart sinks. “Buck, there’s nothing to be sorry for.”

“I’m sorry that I couldn’t…” Bucky reaches out, like he wants to touch, but stops halfway through the movement. Steve backs away to put some space between them.

“Let’s…let’s not do this.” 

Bucky lowers his hand, shoulders slumping. 

“I’m not the person I was, Steve. The person I am now…whoever that is…I need to be with her. I can’t…”

“I never asked you to.” Steve points out. “I’m not exactly waiting around for you. _This_ -” He gestures between them, trying to encompass all the strange tension that has kept them apart since Bucky returned. “This isn’t about you not loving me.”

“Fuck, Steve, I’m always going to _love you._ Don’t you know that? Sometimes I wonder what it could be like if I just…got over myself and we could be together, the way we never imagined we could be –”

“But that’s not really what you want, Buck.” Steve stops him before he goes any further down this path. These aren’t words he needs to hear. He doesn’t want to traffic in _what ifs_ and _what could have beens._ “And it’s not what I want anymore either.”

“So can we just get past what we lost, then? ‘Cause if we don’t, we’re not going to have anything left, Steve. I can’t deal with that; these past nine months have been hell without my best friend.”

“We can try.”

“I don’t rate some of that patented Steve Rogers stubborn determination?” Bucky nudges him with his elbow, joking but not.

Steve considers an honest, emotional answer but figures that he and Bucky have had enough of that. 

“Eh.” He shrugs instead, pretending not to care. He’s unable to keep himself from smiling at Bucky’s mock indignation. They both chuckle and Bucky picks up Steve’s carving knife, handing it to him handle first. 

“Finish up your pumpkin, you jerk.” 

The familiarity is a bit forced, still half an act and half real, but Steve’s sure they’ll eventually manage to fix this. Stop trying and just be.

“Start yours, Tony won’t be happy if he lugged that thing home for no reason.”

“Like Tony Stark carried these home. Please.” Bucky laughs, turning his pumpkin around in a circle, hands trailing over its curves and ridges. Steve hesitates before sniping back, quips not coming as easily as they once did, and Bucky’s grin falters. He points a finger to the face of Iron Man that Steve has so carefully carved.

“Tony…he’s a good guy. Really.”

“He is.”

“He makes you happy, right?”

“Yes.”

“He loves you?”

“I don’t know. Maybe. We haven’t said.”

“But you love him.”

Steve nods, feeling strange to tell Bucky this before he’s even said a word to Tony.

“Good.” Bucky puts his hand on the curved root of the pumpkin, metal fingers tapping the hard surface. “But if he hurts you, Steve…I swear I’m gonna hurt him back.”

“He won’t hurt me.”

“Well.” Bucky doesn’t argue, though it seems he may want to. “It’s just so we’re clear. I have your back.” 

“Yeah.” Steve claps a hand to Bucky’s shoulder. “I know you do.”

“Candles!” Tony tromps back into the kitchen loudly shaking a box of tea lights in each hand. He’s beaming, inordinately pleased over procuring something he hadn’t wanted to go and get in the first place. “Let’s go light up that beautiful carving of yours, share that handsome mug with the rest of the world.” 

He drops the boxes to the counter and then presses a kiss to his fingers, presses his fingers to the face of Steve’s jack o’ lantern.

“Gorgeous.” Tony hefts the pumpkin up. “Grab those candles, Cap, and follow me. Barnes, you come too, you can destroy your pumpkin later.”

“Be there in a minute.” Bucky hangs back, nudging Steve to go on. Steve doesn’t bother pointing out that Bucky’s now being just as obvious as the others had been ten minutes earlier. 

Steve takes the boxes and falls into step beside Tony, wishing that he wasn’t carrying a thing so he could take Tony’s hand. They move through the hallway and foyer at a brisk pace; Tony’s wired, brimming with energy. 

“So you listened to that whole conversation, didn’t you.” Steve doesn’t really _ask_ , because he knows Tony left uneasy and wouldn’t have returned this self-assured if he hadn’t been eavesdropping. He pauses, and Tony keeps going a few paces before realizing Steve has stopped. Tony circles and backtracks.

“I _may_ have come back upstairs and realized you and your old-but-new best buddy were still talking, and perhaps hovered for a moment until I was sure I would no longer be interrupting. I was actually being thoughtful.”

“Uh huh.”

“By the way, you can drop that _maybe_ business.” He lifts on tiptoe and leans in, pops a quick kiss to Steve’s mouth, then nods toward the front door. 

Steve blinks rapidly, processing the implication. Then he’s beaming, unable to help it. 

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.” Tony returns Steve’s wide grin for a moment but then gestures to the door again, this time pointing with his foot. “Now get the damn door before I drop this thing.”

Thor has rejoined the group on the lawn, kneeling beside Bruce and listening attentively as Bruce patiently explains the original purposes of lighting jack o’ lanterns. He’s also lighting a third candle, trying to fit it alongside the first two in order to more brilliantly light the gourdian ode to his own love.

Clint and Sam are scrambling up the fence, attempting to balance their pumpkins atop the stone pillars that frame the iron gate. Clint crows in triumph when he balances his first. 

Natasha stands just past the edge of the light that’s cast from the house, actually smiling gently over Clint’s antics. She looks back over her shoulder as he and Tony walk out, her small smile steady. 

“Everything good?” She asks, cool and undemanding. He stops beside her, watching as Tony sets the pumpkin down and sets about lighting it up. Tony gives him a double thumbs up as Iron Man begins to glow. The carving isn’t perfect, but it seems right all the same. 

“Everything’s good.” 

Natasha leans forward slightly, looking at Bucky as he slowly walks from the house and comes toward them. She raises her eyebrows at him and the corner of his mouth quirks upward in that tiny, unforgettable smirk that’s solely his own. 

“Good.” Natasha nods.

It’s been a week since he’s seen Manhattan. A long, hard and bloody week that only a year ago would have left him shaken to his very core. He probably would’ve been huddled in the corner, breathing into a paper bag and cursing his life.

Steve sits beside him now, and even he looks exhausted. Beautiful, but exhausted. 

He has a gash above his eyebrow that hasn’t quite healed and his blonde hair is for once a mess, like he ran his fingers through it once and gave up. There’s also a surprising amount of scruff on Steve’s face, as there hadn’t been a razor handy when they stopped at a SHIELD safe house to haphazardly clean themselves up and stitch themselves back together before heading home. Steve’s dark blue Under Armour clings to his chest and despite days without a proper meal, his body still looks strong and perfect.

Tony is a far more rough around the edges, bruised and battered and maybe feeling his age just a little more than he’d care to admit. His muscles ache and his goatee needs trimming and even Extremis seems to be running sluggish. But the fact that he has enough energy to find Steve’s unkempt appearance remarkably sexy assures him that he’ll be just fine. 

Bucky and Natasha sit opposite, stoic and silent but with their knees touching. Tony smiles, amused; for them that’s the equivalent of a Times Square kiss on V-J Day. 

“What are you so happy about?” Steve asks, tired but curious. Considering Bruce is passed out in the back after days of flipping personalities, Sam’s suit is good and busted and Clint hasn’t said two words since going into stoic post-battle mode, there logically isn’t much to smile over. Even Thor is down, staring off into space pensively and wearing a stern frown usually reserved only for his brother. 

“Everything.” Tony shrugs, tugging at the too long sleeve of the black sweatshirt he’d borrowed from Steve’s locker. “Nothing. I don’t know. I’m not really happy, I’m just…” He mulls it over, trying to find the right words. “I’m glad we’re going home.”

“Me too.” Steve claps a hand over his, tangling their fingers together almost absent-mindedly. The casualness of the gesture is not lost on Tony; Steve touches him like it’s second-nature now, their connection ingrained into their everyday routine. 

Tony brushes a thumb in small circles over the back of Steve’s hand, thinking for a long moment before deciding just to tell Steve the news he’s been sitting on for awhile. 

“I was going to mention this before, but then we got the call, so I didn’t.”

“Hmmm?”

“The tower’s ready. All fixed up like brand new.”

Steve lifts his eyebrows, too wiped to voice the question. 

“It’s been ready for quite a while now, months, really, but I’ve held off on telling you guys.”

“We can stay at the mansion, Tony. We don’t have to move.” Steve squeezes his hand, knowing without being told that he has his reasons for not wanting to go back there. “Everyone’s fine there.”

“Yeah. I suppose so.” They could stay there. It would be easy. It might even make sense. But not using the tower seems like a forfeit, a failure. And the more Tony thinks about moving everyone in there, the more he feels like it would be capping the year off in triumph. He’ll have won New York back. He’ll have won _himself_ back, this struggle to feel _okay_ finally over. 

_Okay_ is no longer the goal. _Okay_ is no longer the highest the bar he can reach for. He’s shot right past it and landed in _awesome_ and he plans to stay there. 

Tony dips his head to look out the window, surprised to see the city in the distance. It’s lit up brilliantly against the dark night, looking downright majestic. He hadn’t realized they were this close to arriving. “Hey.” 

He tugs on Steve’s hand, urging him to lean over and look. Stark Tower is easy to spot, taller and brighter than nearly everything else in the skyline. Only 1 WTC climbs higher, and even Tony doesn’t begrudge that. 

“It looks good, doesn’t it.” 

“It really does.” Steve agrees, hand on Tony’s shoulder as he peers out at the cityscape. “You left just the _A_ up there?”

“ _A_ for Avengers, right? Seemed like kismet.”

“If kismet’s another word for rampant destruction by the Chitauri, then sure.” Steve pulls away from the tiny window to re-claim his seat. He leans his head back against the wall, neck arching in an appealing way that gives Tony a few not so innocent thoughts. 

He shifts, spreading his legs just a little, and rubs a hand over his knee to distract himself from the need to inappropriately touch Steve in front of the entire team. He’s sure he and Steve will have their fair share of problems as they continue on – after all, he’s _him_ and Steve’s _Steve_ and it can’t be sunshine and roses forever – but right now the only issue is remembering that Steve’s far more reserved than it ever occurred to Tony to be. They may practically live in each other’s spaces and trade in small touches all day long, but Steve would blush bright red if Tony suddenly leaned in like he wants to and licked a hot trail up the length of Steve’s neck and along that sharp jawline. 

That will just have to wait. 

His fingers itch to disrespect Steve’s boundaries so he glances out the window seeking a diversion, taking in the city as they fly over Roosevelt Island and the Queensboro Bridge. To his left, the tower fits into a nice little space between the Empire and the Chrysler, slotting into the skyline like it was always meant to be there. 

“The _A_ works out. Aliens or fate, either way it hardly seemed right to slap my name back on it.”

“It’s yours, you can slap your name on it if you want,” Steve murmurs, halfway to sleep as his eyes drift closed. 

“ _No._ ” Bucky interjects tersely. Steve’s eyes snap back open and he blinks at Bucky, confused.

“Huh?”

“Not you. Him.” Bucky points at Tony. “ _No._ ”

“You don’t even know what I was thinking!” Tony sputters. 

“ _Everyone_ knows what you were thinking.” Natasha rolls her eyes. “And I don’t think tattoos would stay on his skin anyway.”

“Shows what you know, I was actually thinking that the tower is all of ours now, not just mine.” Tony sticks his tongue out at the pair of them, pleased with catching them both out in their rush to judgment. Natasha is mildly surprised by his admission. 

“Huh. Surprisingly sweet of you.”

“ _But_ – I find your suggestion intriguing and therefore worthy of further investigation.” Tony turns Steve’s hand so his forearm faces upward, then pushes up his sleeve and trails his fingers over the pale, soft skin there. It feels fragile under his fingertips even though he knows it’s not. 

Marks fade from Steve’s skin in a matter of hours; he doubts ink would last much longer. 

“Never know until we try,” Steve says quietly, and Tony loves that Steve’s willing to consider it, though he really shouldn’t be surprised. If Steve weren’t miraculously flexible and adaptable, game to try new things, his life would’ve gone completely sideways by now. 

“Touching down in a minute, guys.” Clint announces from the cockpit, reaching upward to flip some switches. The Quinjet dips lower, slowly descending. The mansion was not really set up properly to have this thing land on the roof, so that’s just another reason why the tower seems like a good idea. Tony almost wishes they were going there now, and he could lay Steve out on their brand new bed in the suite he’d designed to share. He could spend all night whispering victory over every inch of Steve’s body. 

Steve yawns and stretches, shifting in his seat. 

Or maybe they could just sleep. Sleep sounds great. 

“I can’t wait to be in my own bed,” Steve says as he reluctantly forces himself upward. “I’m dead on my feet.”

“Are you real particular about those sleeping arrangements?” He knows his playful leer is a little too lascivious for mixed company in Steve’s usual estimation, but Steve seems too tired to care. “My bed’s twice as big and could use a little warming.”

“Your bed’s fine too,” Steve stands up, trailing a hand through Tony’s hair. Tony leans into his touch. The Quinjet jolts and rocks as Clint sets it down, the landing less graceful than usual. 

Steve loses his footing and steps forward to adjust, and Tony automatically reaches out to steady him. A hand on his muscled thigh, another inadvertently grabbing his ass, and Tony thanks whatever powers that be that he gets this man all to himself. His hands linger, happily giving Steve a squeeze.

“Wow, Stark, any excuse,” Sam says as he stumbles blearily from the co-pilot seat and down toward the exit ramp. He pauses to inadvisably kick at Bruce’s cot, startling him awake. Tony looks up at Steve, expecting to find him blushing over the taunt, but Steve only wraps a hand in the loose material of the front of his sweatshirt and hauls him upward. 

Steve’s mouth slants perfectly over his, tongue sliding deep and pulling him immediately into a world where only the two of them exist. Tony lets himself get lost in it, reveling in the feel of Steve’s lips, the warmth and strength of his body pressed close, the tug of his strong fingers threading through his hair. 

When Steve pulls back, Tony’s actually breathless. 

“Come on you two, quit playing grab ass and get down here. Thor wants pizza.” Barnes calls back, and Tony sighs, pulling up the number for Ray’s and trying to decide if ten pies will be enough. Fifteen’s probably safer. 

“Hey.” Steve gets his attention back, leaning down and placing another gentle kiss to his lips. He smiles brightly when he pulls away, and Tony forgets absolutely everything except the man standing in front of him. 

“Welcome home.”


	6. Epilogue

Steve knows he’s not alone.

A familiar cologne wafts toward him, silently announcing Tony’s presence, and Steve breathes it in along with the icy December air. 

Tony is leaning leisurely in the open doorway, backlit warmly by the bright lights from the party inside. His black bowtie is hanging undone around his open collar, half empty glass of champagne held loosely in his hand. He’s devastatingly handsome in his black tuxedo, managing to look both distinguished and debauched. 

Light laughter and murmured chatter flows out onto the landing deck like soothing white noise; the piano player is tinkling out some version of “Rhapsody in Blue” and someone’s turned on the big flat screen above the bar. Times Square is a riot of color and noise; a crowd full of happy faces waiting to chime in the New Year. 

He and Tony are the only ones who’ve left the party. 

“You know, this time, last year, I was in China with Natasha, chasing after the Winter Soldier, not even aware I was really chasing Bucky.” Steve speaks first, walking closer to the railing in an unspoken invitation for Tony to join him. 

Tony pushes off the doorframe and saunters toward him, abandoning his drink on a patio table along the way. He moves liquidly, languidly, entirely comfortable in his own skin. 

“Let’s see…I was going under the knife to have the arc removed.” Tony draws an imaginary circle on his chest where the reactor used to be. “And injecting myself with a volatile virus in order to basically turn myself into the most highly advanced technology on the planet.”

“We weren’t exactly kicking off 2013 with the smartest choices, were we?” Steve leans on the railing, glances toward Tony as he comes to a stop beside him. 

“Hey, speak for yourself.” Tony kicks his foot gently. He chuckles, but then lets the smile fall from his face. He’s quiet for a moment, thoughtful and considering. “But really…we did all right. Look how it all turned out.” 

Tony turns, gestures back toward the party. Behind the large floor to ceiling windows, it’s easy to see everything playing out in tableaux before them. Steve searches the crowd for their friends. Bucky and Natasha are at the bar, drinking their way through a bottle of vodka. Nat’s smiling, for once not hiding her happiness. Bucky’s gaze never leaves her face.

Pepper’s laugh is bright and airy as Phil guides her over the dance floor, steady and sure. Tony had been right about that match, and he even calls Phil by his real name occasionally in order to keep Pepper from getting too annoyed. Thor is sitting with Jane on the love seat, listening raptly to whatever story Jane is unfolding. Steve never understands half of what Jane describes, and he suspects that Thor doesn’t either. It doesn’t seem to matter. Jane’s assistant Darcy has Sam cornered – not that he seems to mind – and Clint is strangely deep in conversation with Maria Hill. 

He hitches for a second on that one and Tony follows the direction of his gaze. 

“New Years. It makes people do crazy things.” He shrugs. “Gotta have someone to kiss at midnight, right?”

“Dunno about that. I’ve never.” Unless kisses on the cheek from his mother counted, which he doesn’t think they do. 

“ _Well._ ” Tony huffs decisively and immediately remedies the situation. Steve grins into the kiss.

“Tony, it’s not midnight yet.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll kiss you then too.” Tony nuzzles in close, circling his arms underneath Steve’s jacket and around Steve’s waist. “God, I’m lucky you’re so warm. It’s fucking freezing out here.” 

“We should maybe go back in, watch the ball drop with everyone?” Steve suggests, rubbing his hands over Tony’s arms and back to heat him up. 

“We don’t have to. I mean, it’s just a ball drop, it’s pretty much the same every year.”   
Steve chuckles to himself, trying to think back to the last time he celebrated a new year with anything but apprehension. 

“Last time I saw the ball drop in Times Square, it was 1941. And now it’s 2014 and here I am, in New York again.” He looks back out over the city, still a little mystified over winding up here in this time. Some days it really hits him how strange this all is, how awful and how wonderful. Mostly wonderful. He looks back down at Tony. “Funny how things turn out.”

“I guess this year _will_ be different.” Tony comments. “If we can make it here, we can make it anywhere, or so they say…” Steve doesn’t know who _they_ are, but they do have a point. “So we’re already off to a far better start.” 

Tony takes one of Steve’s hands and places it over his chest where the arc reactor used to be. Steve loves Tony just a little more for it. 

“Did you make a resolution?”

“Haven’t given it much thought. Get you to stay in bed past six am? That would take some work.” Tony laughs. “What’s yours?”

“To be standing here, next year, with you.”

Tony lets out a sigh of frustration, burying his face in Steve’s chest.

“ _Of course_ yours is brilliant.” He exclaims, looking back up at him and rolling his eyes exaggeratedly. He points a finger close to Steve’s face. “I’m stealing it. Anyone asks I totally came up with it.”

Inside, the chant begins, a chorus of voices counting toward midnight. 

“10…9…8…”

Tony’s hands latch onto his collar, his brown eyes finding Steve’s and holding his gaze. They smile at one another faintly as the numbers trip off their lips. 

“5…4…3…” Steve doesn’t get to one, abruptly cut off by Tony’s eager kiss. 

“1.” He finishes belatedly, both pleased and exasperated by Tony jumping the gun. Tony shrugs, unapologetic, and wraps his arms around Steve’s neck, pulling him back down. 

“What? I couldn’t wait for our new year to start.”

**END**


End file.
